LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 

Mr.    H.    H.    KM  iani 


LIBK/UU 


H.   DE    BALZAC 


THE   COMEDIE    HUMAINE 


HAS     KILLED    ME,     THE    SCAMP 


H.     DE     BALZAC 


THE    PEASANTRY 


(Les  PAYSANS) 

AND  PIERRE  GRASSOU 


TRANSLATED    BY 


ELLEN    MARRIAGE 


WITH   A    PREFACE  BY 


GEORGE    SAINTSBURY 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE  GEBBIE  PUBLISHING  Co.,  Ltd. 
1898 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

PREFACE ix 

THE  PEASANTRY— 

BOOK  I 

CHAP. 

I.  THE  CHATEAU 3 

II.  A  BUCOLIC  OVERLOOKED  BY  VIRGIL 21 

III.  THE  TAVERN .  .  36 

IV.  ANOTHER  IDYL •••55 

V.  THE  ENEMIES  FACE  TO  FACE 73 

VI.  A  TALE  OF  ROBBERS 96 

VII.   OF  EXTINCT  SOCIAL  SPECIES lit 

I 

VIII.  THE  GREAT   REVOLUTIONS   OF  A   LITTLE  VALLEY             .          .  I2Q 

IX.  OF  MEDIOCRACY 155 

x.  A  HAPPY  WOMAN'S  PRESENTIMENTS 175 

XI.   THE  OARISTYS,  THE  EIGHTEENTH   ECLOGUE  OF  THEOCRITUS, 

LITTLE  APPRECIATED   IN  A  COURT  OF  ASSIZE      .          .          .192 

XII.    SHOWS   HOW  THE  TAVERN   IS  THE  PEOPLE'S   PARLIAMENT     .  211 

xin.  THE  PEASANTS'  MONEY-LENDER 231 


vi  CONTENTS. 

BOOK   II 

CHAP.  PAGH 

I.  THE  BEST  SOCIETY  OF  SOULANGES 254 

ii.  THE  QUEEN'S  DRAWING-ROOM 279 

III.  THE  CAFE  DE  LA  FAIX 297 

IV.  THE  TRIUMVIRATE  OF  VILLE-AUX-FAYES         ....  3IO 
V.  HOW  A  VICTORY  WAS  WON  WITHOUT  A  BLOW     .          .          .  324 

VI.  THE  FOREST  AND  THE  HARVEST 333 

"II.  THE  GREYHOUNP 342 

VIII.  RUSTIC  VIRTUES 354 

IX.   THE  CATASTROPHE 359 

X.  THE  VICTORY  OF  THE  VANQUISHED 365 

JPIERRE  GRASSOU 373 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


"  HE  HAS  KILLED  ME,  THE  SCAMP  !  "  (p.  67)        .        .        Frontispiece 

PACK 

FOURCHON  AND   MOUCHE  Si 


SHE  LEANED  ON  EMILE  BLONDET'S  ARM       .       .       .       .      '.    178 

A  TUG  AT  HIS  GRANDFATHER'S  BLOUSE,  WHICH  SENT  THE  OLD 

MAN  OVER  ON  TO  THE  MOUND 2$3 

MICHAUD'S  MURDERER  .....*..    363 

Drawn  by  D.  Murray-Smith. 


PREFACE. 

FEW,  I  suppose,  of  the  readers  of  "Les  Paysans"  (The 
Peasantry)  in  more  recent  years  have  read  it  without  a  more 
or  less  distinct  mental  comparison  with  the  corresponding 
book  in  the  Rougon-Macquart  series.  And  I  should  hope 
that  this  comparative  process  has  had,  in  the  best  minds,  only 
one  result.  "Les  Paysans"  (which,  by  the  way,  is  a  very 
late  book,  partly  posthumous,  and  is  said,  though  not  on 
positive  authority,  to  have  enjoyed  the  collaboration  of 
Madame  de  Balzac)  is  not  one  of  Balzac's  best ;  but  it  is  as  far 
above  "La  Terre  "  (The  Land)  from  every  conceivable  point 
of  view,  except  that  of  Holy  well  Street,*  as  a  play  of  Shake- 
speare is  above  one  of  Monk  Lewis. 

The  comparison,  indeed,  exhibits  something  more  than  the 
difference  of  genius  in  Balzac  and  in  M.  Zola.  It  illustrates 
the  difference  of  their  methods.  We  know  how  not  merely 
the  Rougon-Macquart  series  in  general,  but  "La  Terre  "  in 
particular,  was  composed.  M.  Zola,  who  is  a  conscientious 
man,  went  down  to  a  village  (somewhere  in  the  Beauce,  if  I 
recollect  rightly),  stayed  some  time,  made  his  notes,  and 
came  back  to  Paris.  There  is  nothing  like  the  same  great 
gulf  fixed  between  the  Londoner  and  the  countryman  in 
England  as  that  which  exists  between  the  Parisian  and  the 
Provincial  in  France.  But  imagine  an  Englishman,  not  even 
English  by  race,  from  his  youth  up  an  inhabitant  of  great 
towns,  attempting  to  delineate  the  English  peasantry  after  a 
few  weeks'  stay  in  a  Wiltshire  village  ! 

Balzac,  on  the  other  hand,  a  Frenchman  of  Frenchmen, 
was  born  in  a  French  country  town,  was  brought  up  in  the 
country,  and,  what  is  more,  was  in  the  constant  habit  of 

*  Socialists'  headquarters,  London. 

(ix) 


x  PREFACE. 

retiring  to  out-of-the-way  country  inns  and  similar  places  to 
work.  He  had  the  key  to  begin  with ;  and  he  never  let  it 
get  rusty.  To  some  tastes  and  judgments  his  country  sketches, 
if  less  lively,  are  more  veracious  even  than  his  Parisian  ones ; 
they  have  less  convention  about  them ;  they  are  less  obviously 
under  the  dominion  of  prepossessions  and  crotchets,  less 
elaborately  calculated  to  form  backgrounds  and  scenery  for 
the  evolutions  of  Rastignacs  and  Rubempres. 

The  result  is,  in  "Les  Paysans,"  a  book  of  extraordinary 
interest  and  value.  In  one  respect,  indeed,  it  falls  short  of 
the  highest  kind  of  novel.  There  is  no  character  in  whose 
fortunes  or  in  whose  development  we  take  the  keenest  interest. 
Blondet  is  little  more  than  an  intelligent  chorus  or  reporter, 
though  he  does  not  tell  the  story;  Montcornet  is  a  good- 
natured  "old  silly;"  the  Countess  is — a  Countess.  Not 
one  of  the  minor  characters,  not  even  Rigou,  is  very  much 
more  than  a  sketch.  But  then  there  is  such  a  multitude  of 
these  sketches,  and  they  are  all  instinct  with  such  life  and 
vigor  !  Although  Balzac  has  used  no  illegitimate  attractions 
— think  only  of  the  kind  of  stuff  with  which  M.  Zola,  like  a 
child  smearing  color  on  a  book-engraving,  would  have  daubed 
the  grisly  outlines  of  the  Tonsard  family  ! — he  has  not  shrunk 
from  what  even  our  modern  realists,  I  suppose,  would  allow 
to  be  "  candor ;  "  and  his  book  is  as  masterly  as  it  is  crushing 
in  its  indictment  against  the  peasant. 

Is  the  indictment  as  true  as  it  is  severe  and  well  urged? 
I  am  rather  afraid  that  we  have  not  much  farther  to  look  than 
at  certain  parts  of  more  than  one  of  the  Three  Kingdoms  to 
see  that  we  need  not  even  limit  ourselves  to  the  French  peasant 
in  admitting  that  it  is.  There  are  passages  in  the  book  which 
read  as  if  they  might  be  extracts  mutatis  mutandis  (with  neces- 
sary changes)  from  a  novel  on  the  Irish  Land  League  or  the 
Welsh  Anti-Tithe  Agitation.  To  a  certain  extent,  no  doubt, 
the  English  peasant,  at  least  when  he  is  not  Celtic,  is  rather 
less  bitten  with  actual  "land-hunger"  than  the  Frenchman ; 


PREFACE.  xi 

and  even  when  he  is  a  Celt,  it  does  not  seem  to  be  so  much 
land-hunger  proper  as  a  dislike  to  adopting  any  other  occupa- 
tion which  drives  him  to  crime.  Moreover,  Free  Trade  and 
other  things  have  made  land  in  the  United  Kingdom  very 
much  less  an  object  of  positive  greed  than  it  was  in  France 
eighty  years  ago,  or,  indeed,  than  it  is  there  still.  Yet  the 
main  and  special  ingredients  of  a  land  agitation — the  ruthless 
disregard  of  life,  the  indifference  to  all  considerations  of 
gratitude  or  justice,  the  secret-society  alliance  against  the 
upper  classes — all  these  things  are  delineated  here  with  an 
almost  terrifying  veracity. 

For  individual  and  separate  sketches  of  scenes  and  charac- 
ters (with  the  limitation  above  expressed)  the  book  may  vie 
almost  with  the  best.  The  partly  real,  partly  fictitious,  otter- 
hunting  of  the  old  scoundrel  Fourchon  is  quite  first-rate ;  and 
it  is  of  a  kind  rarely  found  in  French  writers  till  a  time  much 
more  modern  than  Balzac's.  The  machinations  of  Gaubertin, 
Sibilet,  and  Rigou  are  a  little  less  vivid ;  but  the  latter  is  a 
masterly  character  of  the  second  class,  and  perhaps  the  best 
type  in  fiction  of  the  intelligent  sensualist  of  the  lower  rank 
— of  the  man  hard-headed,  harder-hearted,  and  entirely  desti- 
tute of  any  merit  but  shrewdness.  The  character  of  Bonne- 
bault  is  a  little,  a  very  little,  theatrical;  the  troupier  franf ais 
(French  soldier)  debauched,  but  not  ungenerous,  appears  a 
little  too  much  in  his  cartoon  manner.  "  La  Pechina  "  wants 
fuller  working  out ;  but  she  affords  one  of  the  most  interesting 
touches  of  the  comparison  above  suggested  in  the  scene  between 
her,  Nicolas,  and  Catherine.  One  turns  a  little  squeamish 
at  the  mere  thought  of  what  M.  Zola  would  have  made  of  it 
in  the  effort  to  make  clear  to  the  lowest  apprehension  what 
Balzac,  almost  without  offense,  has  made  clear  to  all  but  the 
very  lowest.  Michaud  is  good  and  not  overdone ;  and  of  his 
enemies  the  Tonsards — enough  has  been  said.  They  could 
not  be  better  in  their  effectiveness ;  and,  I  am  afraid,  they 
could  not  be  much  better  in  their  truth.  Here,  at  least,  if 


xu  PREFACE. 

the  moral  picture  is  grimy  enough,  Balzac  cannot,  I  think,  be 
charged  with  having  exaggerated  it,  while  he  cannot  be  denied 
the  credit  of  having  presented  it  in  extraordinarily  forcible 
and  brilliant  colors  and  outlines. 

"Les  Paysans,"  owing  to  the  lateness  of  its  appearance, 
was  less  pulled  about  than  almost  any  other  of  its  author's 
books.  It,  or  rather  the  first  part  of  it,  appeared  under  the 
title  "  Qui  Terre  a  guerre  a  "  (who  wage  war  for  land)  in  the 
"Presse"  for  December,  1844.  Nothing  more  appeared 
during  the  author's  life;  but  in  1855  the  " Revue  de  Paris " 
reprinted  the  previous  portion  and  finished  the  book,  and  the 
whole  was  published  in  four  volumes  by  de  Potter  in  the  same 
year. 

"Pierre  Grassou"  is  good  in  itself;  it  is  very  characteristic 
of  its  time,  and  it  is  specially  happy  as  giving  a  touch  of 
comedy,  which  is  grateful.  The  figure  of  the  artist- bourgeois, 
neither  Bohemian  nor  buveur  d'eau  (water  drinker),  is  excel- 
lently hit  off,  and  the  thing  leaves  us  with  all  the  sense  of  a 
pleasant  afterpiece. 

G.  S. 


THE  PEASANTRY. 

To  M.  P.-S.-B.  Gavault. 

"I  have  seen  the  manners  of  my  time,  and  I  publish 
these  letters,"  wrote  Jean- Jacques  Rousseau  at  the 
beginning  of  his  "  Nouvelle  Heloise  ;  "  can  I  not  imi- 
tate that  great  writer  and  tell  you  that  "/am  studying 
the  tendencies  of  my  epoch,  and  I  publish  this  work  ?" 

S0  long  as  society  inclines  to  exalt  philanthropy  into 
a  principle  instead  of  regarding  it  as  an  accessory,  this 
Study  will  be  terribly  true  to  life.  Its  object  is  to  set 
in  relief  the  principal  types  of  a  class  neglected  by  the 
throng  of  writers  in  quest  of  new  subjects.  This  neg- 
lect, it  may  be,  is  simple  prudence  in  days  when  the 
working  classes  have  fallen  heirs  to  the  courtiers  and 
flatterers  of  kings,  when  the  criminal  is  tlic  hero  of 
romance,  the  headsman  is  sentimentally  interesting,  and 
we  behold  something  like  an  apotheosis  of  the  prole- 
tariat. Sects  have  arisen  among  us,  every  pen  among 
them  swells  the  chorus  of  "  Workers,  arise  !  "  even  as 
once  the  Third  Estate  was  bidden  to  "Arise  I"  It 
is  pretty  plain  that  no  Herostratus  among  them  has 
had  the  courage  to  go  forth  into  remote  country  districts 
to  study  the  phenomena  of  a  permanent  conspiracy  of 
those  whom  we  call  '''the  weak"  against  those  who 
imagine  themselves  to  be  "the  strong" — of  the  Peasan- 
try against  the  Rich.  All  that  can  be  done  is  to  open 
the  eyes  of  the  legislator,  not  of  to-day,  but  of  to-mor- 
row. In  the  midst  of  an  attack  of  democratic  vertigo 
to  which  so  many  blind  scribes  have  fallen  victims,  is 
it  not  imperatively  necessary  that  some  one  should 

(1) 


THE  PEASANTRY. 

paint  the  portrait  of  this  Peasant  who  stultifies  the 
Code  by  reducing  the  ownership  of  land  to  a  something 
that  at  once  is  and  is  not  ?  Here  you  shall  see  this  in- 
defatigable sapper  at  his  work,  nibbling  and  gnawing 
the  land  into  little  bits,  carving  an  acre  into  a  hundred 
scraps,  to  be  in  turn  divided,  summoned  to  the  banquet 
by  the  bourgeois,  who  finds  in  him  a  victim  and  ally. 
Here  is  a  social  dissolvent,  created  by  the  Revolution, 
that  will  end  by  swallowing  up  the  bourgeoisie,  which 
in  its  day  devoured  the  old  noblesse.  Here  is  a  Robes- 
pierre, with  a  single  head  and  twenty  million  hands, 
whose  very  insignificance  and  obscurity  has  put  him 
out  of  the  reach  of  the  law  ;  a  Robespierre  always  at 
his  work,  crouching  in  every  commune,  enthroned  in 
town  council  chambers,  and  bearing  arms  in  the  Na- 
tional Guard  in  every  district  in  France,  for  in  the 
year  1830  France  forgot  that  Napoleon  preferred  to 
run  the  risks  of  his  misfortunes  to  the  alternative  of 
arming  the  masses. 

If  during  the  past  eight  years  I  have  a  hundred 
times  taken  up  and  laid  down  the  most  considerable 
piece  of  work  which  I  have  undertaken  ;  my  friends, 
as  you  yourself ,  will  understand  that  courage  may  well 
falter  before  such  difficulties,  and  the  mass  of  details 
essential  to  the  development  of  a  drama  so  cruelly 
bloodthirsty,  but  among  the  many  reasons  which  in- 
duce something  like  temerity  in  me,  count  as  one  my 
desire  to  complete  a  work  destined  as  a  token  of  deep 
and  lasting  gratitude  for  a  devotion  which  was  one  of 
my  greatest  consolations  in  misfortune. 

DE  BALZAC. 


BOOK  I. 

He  that  hath  the  Land 
Must  fight  for  his  own  Hand. 

I. 

THE   CHATEAU. 

To  Monsieur  Nathan. 

"THE  AlGUES, 
"August  6,  1823. 

"  Now,  my  dear  Nathan,  purveyor  of  dreams  to  the  public, 
I  will  set  you  dreaming  of  the  actual,  and  you  shall  tell  me 
if  ever  this  century  of  ours  can  leave  a  legacy  of  such  dreams 
to  the  Nathans  and  the  Blondets  of  1923.  You  shall  measure 
the  distance  we  have  traveled  since  the  time  when  the  Florines 
of  the  eighteenth  century  awoke  to  find  such  a  castle  as  the 
Aigues  in  their  contract. 

"When  you  get  my  letter  in  the  morning,  dear  friend  of 
mine,  from  your  bed  will  you  see,  fifty  leagues  away  from 
Paris,  by  the  side  of  the  high  road  on  the  confines  of  Bur- 
gundy, a  pair  of  red  brick  lodges  separated  or  united  by  a 
green-painted  barrier?  There  the  coach  deposited  your 
friend. 

"  A  privet  hedge  winds  away  on  either  side  of  the  lodge 
gates ;  with  trails  of  bramble  like  stray  hairs  escaping  from  it, 
and  here  and  there  an  upstart  sapling.  Wild  flowers  grow  along 
the  top  of  the  bank  above  the  ditch  bathed  at  their  roots  by 
the  stagnant  green  water.  To  right  and  left  the  hedges  ex- 
tend as  far  as  the  coppice  which  skirts  a  double  meadow,  a 
bit  of  cleared  forest,  no  doubt. 

(3) 


4  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  From  the  dusty  deserted  lodges  at  the  gates  there  stretches 
a  magnificent  avenue  of  elm-trees,  a  century  old ;  the  spread- 
ing tops  meet  in  a  majestic  green  arched  roof  overhead,  and 
the  road  below  is  so  overgrown  with  grass  that  you  can 
scarcely  see  the  ruts.  The  old-world  look  of  the  gate,  the 
venerable  elm-trees,  the  breadth  of  the  alleys  on  either  side 
which  cross  the  avenue,  prepare  you  to  expect  an  almost 
royal  castle.  Before  reaching  the  lodge  I  had  had  a  look 
at  the  valley  of  the  Aigues  from  the  top  of  one  of  the  slopes 
which  we  in  France  have  the  vanity  to  call  a  hill,  just  above 
the  village  of  Conches,  where  we  changed  horses  for  the  last 
stage.  At  the  end  the  highway  makes  a  detour  to  pass  through 
the  little  sub-prefecture  of  Ville-aux-Fayes,  where  a  nephew 
of  our  friend  Lupeaulx  lords  it  over  the  rural  popula- 
tion. The  higher  slopes  of  the  broad  ridges  above  the  river 
are  crowned  by  the  forest  which  stretches  along  the  horizon 
line,  and  the  whole  picture  is  framed  in  the  setting  of  the 
far-off  hills  of  the  Morvan — that  miniature  Switzerland.  All 
this  dense  forest  lies  in  three  hands.  It  belongs  partly  to  the 
Aigues,  partly  to  the  Marquis  de  Ronquerolles,  partly  to  the 
Comte  de  Soulanges,  whose  country  houses,  parks,  and  villages, 
seen  far  down  below  in  the  valley,  seem  to  be  a  realization  of 
'Velvet'  Breughel,  landscape  fancies. 

"If  these  details  do  not  put  you  in  mind  of  all  the  castles 
in  Spain  which  you  have  longed  to  possess  in  France,  this 
wonder-stricken  Parisian's  traveler's  tale  is  clean  thrown  away 
upon  you.  Briefly,  I  have  delighted  in  a  country  where  nature 
and  art  blend  without  spoiling  each  other,  for  nature  here  is 
an  artist,  and  art  looks  like  nature.  I  have  found  the  oasis 
of  which  we  have  dreamed  so  often  after  reading  certain 
romances ;  exuberant  wildness  subordinated  to  an  effect, 
nature  left  to  herself  without  confusion,  and  even  with  a 
suggestion  of  the  wilderness,  neglect,  mystery;  a  certain 
character  of  its  own.  Over  the  barrier  with  you,  and  on  we 


THE   PEASANTRY.  5 

"  When  with  curious  eyes  I  tried  to  look  down  the  whole 
length  of  the  avenue,  which  the  sun  only  penetrates  at  sunrise 
and  sunset,  drawing  zebra  markings  of  shadow  across  it  when 
the  light  is  low,  my  view  was  cut  short  by  the  outline  of  a  bit 
of  rising  ground.  The  avenue  makes  a  detour  to  avoid  it,  and, 
when  you  have  turned  the  corner,  the  long  row  of  trees  is  in- 
terrupted again  by  a  little  wood  ;  you  enter  a  square  with  a 
stone  obelisk  standing  erect  in  the  midst  like  an  eternal  note 
of  exclamation.  Purple  or  yellow  flowers  (according  to  the 
time  of  year)  droop  from  the  courses  of  the  masonry,  and  the 
monolith  itself  is  surmounted  (what  a  notion  !)  by  a  spiked 
ball.  Clearly  it  was  a  woman  who  designed  the  Aigues,  a 
man  does  not  have  such  coquettish  fancies.  The  architect 
acted  upon  instructions. 

"  Beyond  the  little  wood,  posted  there  like  a  sentinel,  I 
came  out  into  a  delicious  dip  of  the  land,  and  crossed  a  foam- 
ing stream  by  a  single-span  stone  bridge  covered  with  mosses 
of  glorious  hues,  the  daintiest  of  time's  mosaics.  Then  the 
avenue  ascends  a  gentle  slope  above  the  course  of  the  stream, 
and  in  the  distance  you  see  the  first  set  picture — a  mill  with 
its  weir  and  causeway  nestled  among  green  trees.  There  was 
the  thatched  roof  of  the  miller's  house,  the  ducks  and  drying 
linen,  the  nets  and  tackle,  and  well-boat,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
miller's  lad,  who  had.  been  gazing  at  me  before  I  set  eyes  on 
him.  Wherever  you  may  be  in  the  country,  sure  though  you 
feel  that  you  are  quite  alone,  you  are  the  cynosure  of  some 
pair  of  eyes  under  a  cotton  night-cap.  Some  laborer  drops 
his  hoe  to  look  at  you,  some  vine-dresser  straightens  his  bent 
back,  some  little  maid  leaves  her  goats,  or  cows,  or  sheep, 
and  scrambles  up  a  near-by  willow  tree  to  watch  your  every 
movement. 

"  Before  long  the  elm  avenue  becomes  an  alley,  shaded  by 
acacias,  which  brings  you  to  a  gate  belonging  to  the  period 
when  wrought-iron  was  twisted  into  aerial  filigree  work,  not 
unlike  a  writing-master's  specimen  flourishes ;  this  Avenue 


6  THE  PEASANTRY. 

gate,  as  it  is  called,  reveals  the  taste  of  the  grand  dauphin 
who  built  it ;  and  if  the  golden  arabesques  are  somewhat  red- 
dened now  by  the  rust  beneath,  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  none 
the  less  picturesque  on  that  account.  On  either  side  it  is 
flanked  by  a  porter's  lodge,  after  the  manner  of  the  palace  at 
Versailles,  each  surmounted  by  a  colossal  urn.  A  ha-ha  fence, 
bristling  with  spikes  most  formidable  to  behold,  extends  for 
some  distance  on  either  side,  and  when  the  ha-ha  ends  a 
rough  unplastered  wall  begins,  a  wall  of  motley-colored  stones 
of  the  strangest  conceivable  shapes,  imbedded  in  reddish- 
colored  mortar,  the  warm  yellow  of  the  flints  blending  with 
the  white  chalk  and  red-brown  gritstone. 

"At  first  sight  the  park  looks  sombre,  for  the  walls  are 
hidden  by  climbing  plants,  and  the  trees  have  not  heard  the 
sound  of  an  axe  for  fifty  years.  You  might  think  that  it  had 
become  virgin  forest  again  by  some  strange  miracle  known  to 
woods  alone.  The  plants  that  cling  about  the  tree-trunks 
have  bound  them  together.  Glistening  mistletoe-berries  hang 
from  every  fork  in  the  branches  where  the  rain-water  can  lie. 
There  I  have  found  giant  ivy-stems,  and  such  growths  as  can 
only  exist  at  a  distance  of  fifty  leagues  from  Paris,  where  land 
is  not  too  dear  to  afford  them  ample  room.  It  takes  a  good 
many  square  miles  to  make  such  a  landscape  as  this.  There 
is  no  sort  of  trimness  about  it,  no  sign  of  the  garden  rake. 
The  ruts  are  full  of  water,  where  the  frogs  increase  and  multi- 
ply and  the  tadpoles  abide  in  peace ;  delicate  forest  flowers 
grow  there,  the  heather  is  as  fine  as  any  that  I  have  seen  by 
the  hearth  in  January  in  Florine's  elaborate  flower-stand. 
The  mystery  of  the  place  mounts  to  your  brain  and  stirs  vague 
longings.  The  scent  of  the  forest  is  adored  by  all  lovers  of 
poetry,  for  all  things  in  it — the  most  harmless  mosses,  the 
deadliest  lurking  growths,  damp  earth,  water-willows,  and 
balm  and  wild  thyme,  and  the  yellow  stars  of  the  water-lilies, 
all  the  teeming  vigorous  growth  of  the  woods  yields  itself  to 
me  in  the  breath  of  the  forest  and  brings  me  the  thought  of 


THE   PEASANTRY.  7 

them  all,  perhaps  the  soul  of  them  all.  I  fell  to  thinking 
of  a  rose-colored  dress  flitting  along  the  winding  alley. 

"  It  ended  abruptly  at  last  in  a  little  wood  full  of  tremulous 
birches  and  poplars  and  their  quivering  kind,  sensitive  to  the 
wind,  slender-stemmed,  graceful  of  growth,  the  trees  of  free 
love.  And  then,  my  dear  fellow,  I  saw  a  sheet  of  water 
covered  with  pond-lilies,  and  a  light  nutshell  of  a  boat, 
painted  black  and  white,  dainty  as  a  Seine  waterman's  craft, 
lying  rotting  among  the  leaves  of  the  water-plants,  broad  and 
spreading,  or  delicate  and  fine. 

"  Beyond  the  water  rises  the  castle,  which  bears  the  date 
1560.  It  is  a  red  brick  building  with  stone  facings,  string 
courses  and  angles,  all  of  stone.  The  casements  (oh !  Versailles) 
still  keep  their  tiny  square  window-panes.  The  stone  of  the 
string  courses  is  cut  into  pyramids  alternately  raised  and  de- 
pressed, as  on  the  Renaissance  front  of  the  ducal  palace.  The 
castle  is  a  straggling  building,  with  the  exception  of  the  main 
body,  which  is  approached  by  an  imposing  double  stone  stair- 
case ascending  in  parallel  lines  and  turning  half-way  up  at 
right  angles.  The  round  balusters  are  flattened  at  the  thickest 
part  and  taper  toward  the  bottom.  To  this  main  body  various 
turrets  have  been  added,  covered  with  lead  in  floral  designs, 
and  modern  wings  with  balconies  and  urns  more  or  less  in 
the  Grecian  style.  There  is  no  symmetry  about  it,  my  dear 
fellow.  The  buildings  are  dotted  down  quite  promiscuously — 
nests  sheltered,  as  it  were,  by  a  few  trees.  Their  leafage  scat- 
ters countless  brown  needles  over  the  roof,  a  deposit  of  soil 
for  the  moss  to  grow  in,  filling  the  great  rifts,  which  attract 
the  eyes,  with  plant  life.  Here  there  is  stone-pine,  with  rusty 
red  bark  and  umbrella-shaped  top,  there  a  cedar  a  couple  of 
centuries  old,  a  spruce-fir,  or  weeping-willows,  or  an  oak-tree 
rising  above  these,  and  (in  front  of  the  principal  turret)  the 
most  outlandish-looking  shrubs,  clipped  yews  to  set  you  think- 
ing of  some  old  French  plaisance  long  since  swept  away,  and 
hortensias  and  magnolias  at  their  feet ;  in  fact,  it  is  a  sort  of 


g  THE  PEASANTRY. 

horticultural  pensioner's  hospital,  an  asylum  of  nature  where 
trees  that  have  had  their  day  linger  on,  forgotten  like  other 

heroes. 

"  A  quaintly  carved  chimney  at  the  house  angle,  puffing  out 
volumes  of  smoke,  assured  me  that  this  charming  view  was  no 
scene  on  the  stage.  If  there  was  a  kitchen,  human  beings 
lived  there.  Can  you  imagine  me,  Blondet,  the  Parisian  who 
thinks  he  has  come  to  the  Arctic  regions  when  he  finds  him- 
self at  Saint-Cloud,  set  down  in  the  midst  of  that  torrid  zone 
of  Burgundian  landscape?  The  sun  beats  down  in  scorching 
rays,  the  kingfisher  keeps  to  the  brink  of  the  pool,  the  cicadas 
chirp,  the  grasshoppers  cry,  the  seed-vessels  of  some  plant 
crack  here  and  there,  the  poppies  distill  their  opiate  in  thick 
tears,  everything  stands  out  sharp  and  clear  against  the  dark- 
blue  sky.  Joyous  fumes  of  Nature's  punch  mount  up  from  the 
reddish  earth  on  the  garden  terraces ;  insects  and  flowers  are 
drunk  with  the  vapor  that  burns  our  faces  and  scorches  our 
eyes.  The  grapes  are  rounding,  the  vines  wearing  a  network 
of  pale  threads  so  fine  that  it  puts  laceworkers  to  the  blush ; 
and  (a  final  touch)  all  along  the  terrace,  in  front  of  the  house, 
blaze  the  blue  larkspurs,  nasturtiums  the  color  of  flame,  and 
sweet-peas.  The  scent  of  tuberose  and  orange  blossoms  comes 
from  a  distance.  The  forest  fragrance  which  stirred  my 
imagination  prepared  me  for  the  pungent  perfumes  burning 
in  this  flower-seraglio. 

"  Then,  at  the  head  of  the  stone  staircase,  imagine  a  woman 
like  a  queen  of  flowers,  a  woman  dressed  in  white,  holding  a 
sunshade  lined  with  white  silk  above  her  bare  head,  a  woman 
whiter  than  the  silk,  whiter  than  the  lilies  at  her  feet,  or  the 
starry  jessamine  thrusting  itself  up  boldly  through  the  balus- 
trade before  her ;  a  Frenchwoman  born  in  Russia,  who  says, 
'  I  had  quite  given  you  up! '  She  had  seen  me  ever  since  the 
turning  in  the  path.  How  perfectly  any  woman,  even  the 
simplest  of  her  sex,  understands  and  adapts  herself  to  a  situa- 
tion. The  servants  were  busy  preparing  breakfast,  evidently 


THE  PEASANTRY.  9 

delayed  till  the  diligence  should  arrive.     She  had  not  ven- 
tured to  come  to  meet  me. 

"What  is  this  but  our  dream?  the  dream  of  all  lovers  of 
Beauty  in  its  many  forms — beauty  as  of  seraphs  in  a  Luini's 
'  Marriage  of  the  Virgin  '  at  Sarono,  beauty  that  a  Rubens  dis- 
covers in  the  press  of  the  fight  in  his  '  Battle  of  Thermodon,' 
beauty  that  five  centuries  have  elaborated  in  the  cathedrals  of 
Milan  and  Seville,  beauty  of  Saracen  Granada,  beauty  of  a 
Louis  Quatorze's  Versailles,  beauty  of  the  Alps — beauty  of 
La  Limagne  ? 

"  Here  there  is  nothing  overmuch  of  prince  or  financier,  but 
prince  of  the  blood  and  farmer-general  have  dwelt  at  the 
Aigues,  or  it  would  not  include  two  thousand  acres  of  wood- 
land, a  park  nine  hundred  acres  in  extent,  the  mill,  three 
little  holdings,  a  large  farm  at  Conches,  and  the  vineyards 
belonging  to  the  estate,  which  must  bring  in  seventy-two 
thousand  francs  every  year.  Such  is  the  Aigues,  dear  boy, 
whither  I  have  come  on  an  invitation  of  two  years'  standing, 
and  here  I  write  at  this  moment  in  the  Blue  Chamber — the 
room  kept  for  intimate  friends  of  the  house. 

"At  the  high  end  of  the  park  there  are  a  dozen  springs  of 
clear  and  limpid  water  from  the  Morvan,  flowing  in  liquid 
ribbons  down  through  the  park  in  the  valley,  and  through  the 
magnificent  gardens  to  pour  into  the  pool.  These  have  given 
the  Aigues  its  name  ;  Les  Aigues-Vives,  the  living  water,  it  used 
to  be  on  old  title-deeds,  in  contradistinction  to  Les  Aigues- 
Mortes,  the  dead  water,  but  Vives  has  been  suppressed.  The 
pool  empties  itself  into  the  little  river  that  crosses  the  avenue, 
through  a  narrow,  willow-fringed  channel.  The  effect  of  the 
channel  thus  decked  is  charming.  As  you  glide  along  it 
in  a  boat,  you  might  fancy  yourself  in  the  nave  of  some  vast 
cathedral,  with  the  main  body  of  the  house  at  the  further  end 
of  the  channel  to  represent  the  choir ;  and  if  the  sunset  sheds 
its  orange  hues,  barred  with  shadow,  across  the  front  of  the 
castle  and  lights  up  the  panes,  it  seems  to  you  that  you  see  the 


1C  THE  PEASANTRY. 

fiery  stained-glass  windows.  At  the  end  of  the  channel  you 
see  Blangy,  the  principal  village  in  the  commune,  which 
boasts  some  sixty  houses  and  a  country  church;  or,  strictly 
speaking,  this  is  simply  an  ordinary  house  in  shocking  repair, 
and  distinguished  from  the  rest  by  a  wooden  steeple  roofed 
with  broken  tiles.  A  decent  private  house  and  a  parsonage 
are  likewise  distinguishable. 

"The  commune  is,  for  all  that,  a  fairly  large  one.  There 
are  some  two  hundred  scattered  hearths  in  it,  beside  those  in 
the  little  market  town  itself.  There  are  fruit-trees  along  the 
wayside,  and  the  land  is  cut  up  here  and  there  into  gardens, 
regular  laborers'  gardens,  where  everything  is  crowded  into  a 
little  space,  flowers,  and  onions,  and  cabbages,  and  vines,  and 
gooseberry-bushes,  and  a  great  many  dung-heaps.  The  village 
itself  has  an  unsophisticated  air;  it  looks  rustic,  with  that  very 
tidy  simplicity  which  painters  prize  so  highly.  And  further 
away,  quite  in  the  distance,  you  see  the  little  town  of  Sou- 
langes  on  the  edge  of  a  large  sheet  of  water,  like  an  imitation 
Lake  of  Thun. 

"  When  you  walk  here  in  the  park,  with  its  four  gates  each 
in  the  grand  style,  you  find  your  Arcadia  of  mythology  grow 
flat  as  Beauce.  The  real  Arcadia  is  in  Burgundy,  and  not  in 
Greece  ;  Arcadia  is  the  Aigues,  and  nowhere  else.  The  little 
streams  have  united  to  make  the  river  that  winds  along  the 
lowest  grounds  of  the  park,  hence  the  cool  stillness  peculiar  to 
it,  and  the  appearance  of  loneliness  that  puts  you  in  mind  of 
the  Chartreuse,  an  idea  carried  out  by  a  hermitage  on  an 
island  contrived  in  the  midst ;  without,  it  looks  like  a  ruin  in 
good  earnest ;  within,  its  elegance  is  worthy  of  the  taste  of  the 
sybarite-financier  who  planned  it. 

"The  Aigues,  my  dear  fellow,  once  belonged  to  that 
Bouret  who  spent  two  millions  on  a  single  occasion  when 
Louis  XV.  came  here.  How  many  stormy  passions,  distin- 
guished intellects,  and  lucky  circumstances  have  combined  to 
make  this  beautiful  place  what  it  is.  One  of  Henri  IV. 's 


THE  PEASANTRY.  11 

mistresses  rebuilt  the  present  castle,  and  added  the  forest  to 
the  estate.  Then  the  castle  was  given  to  Mile.  Choin,  a 
favorite  of  the  grand  dauphin,  and  she  too  enlarged  the 
Aigues  by  several  farms.  Bouret  fitted  up  the  house  with  all 
the  refinements  of  luxury  to  be  found  in  the  snug  Parisian 
paradises  of  operatic  celebrities.  Jt  was  Bouret,  too,  who 
restored  the  ground-floor  rooms  in  the  style  of  Louis  XV. 

"  The  dining-hall  struck  me  dumb  with  wonder.  Your  eyes 
are  attracted  first  to  the  fantastic  arabesques  of  the  ceiling, 
which  is  covered  with  frescoes  in  the  Italian  manner.  Stucco 
women  terminating  in  leafage  bear  baskets  of  fruit,  from 
which  the  foliage  of  the  ceiling  springs.  On  the  wall-spaces 
between  the  figures  some  unknown  artists  painted  wonderful 
designs,  all  the  glories  of  the  table ;  salmon  and  boars'  heads, 
and  shell-fish,  and  every  edible  thing  that  by  any  strange 
freak  of  resemblance  can  recall  the  human  form — man,  woman, 
or  child ;  for  whimsicality  of  invention  the  designer  might 
rival  the  Chinese,  who,  to  my  thinking,  best  understand  deco- 
rative art.  A  spring  is  set  under  the  table  in  the  floor  by 
the  chair  of  the  mistress  of  the  house,  so  that  she  may  touch 
the  bell  with  her  foot  to  summon  the  servants  without  inter- 
rupting the  conversation  or  disturbing  her  pose.  Paintings 
of  voluptuous  scenes  are  set  above  the  doors.  All  the  embra- 
sures are  of  marble  mosaic,  and  the  hall  is  warmed  from  be- 
neath. From  every  window  there  is  a  delightful  view. 

"The  dining-hall  communicates  with  a  bathroom  on  the 
one  hand  and  a  boudoir  on  the  other.  The  bathroom  is  lined 
with  Sevres  tiles,  painted  in  monochrome,  after  Boucher's  de- 
signs ;  the  floor  is  paved  with  mosaic ;  the  bath  itself  with 
marble.  In  an  alcove,  screened  by  a  painting  on  copper, 
raised  by  means  of  pulleys  and  a  counterpoise,  there  is  a 
couch  of  gilded  wood  in  the  very  height  of  the  Pompadour 
style.  The  lapis  blue  ceiling  is  spangled  with  golden  stars. 
In  this  way  the  bath,  the  table,  and  the  loves  are  brought 
together. 


12  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"Beyond  the  salon,  in  all  the  glory  of  the  style  of  Louis 
XIV.,  is  the  splendid  billiard-room.  I  do  not  know  that  it 
has  its  match  in  Paris.  At  the  farther  end  of  the  semicircular 
entrance-hall,  the  finest  and  daintiest  of  staircases,  lighted 
from  above,  leads  to  the  various  suites  of  apartments,  built  in 
different  centuries.  And  yet,  my  dear  fellow,  they  cut  off  the 
heads  of  farmers-general  in  1793  !  Good  heavens  !  why  can- 
not people  understand  that  miracles  of  art  are  impossible 
without  great  fortunes  and  lordly  lives  of  secure  tranquillity. 
If  the  Opposition  must  needs  put  kings  to  death,  they  might 
leave  us  a  few  petty  princes  to  keep  up  insignificant  great 
state. 

"  At  the  present  day  these  accumulated  treasures  are  in  the 
keeping  of  a  little  woman  with  an  artist's  temperament.  Not 
content  with  restoring  the  place  on  a  large  scale,  she  makes  a 
labor  of  love  of  their  custody.  Philosophers,  falsely  so  called, 
who  are  wholly  taken  up  with  themselves,  while  apparently 
interested  in  humanity,  call  these  pretty  things  extravagances. 
They  will  swoon  away  before  a  spinning-jenny  and  wax  faint 
with  bliss  over  tiresome  modern  industrial  inventions,  as  if  we 
of  to-day  were  any  greater  or  any  happier  than  they  of  the 
time  of  Henri  IV.,  of  Louis  XIV.,  or  Louis  XVI.,  who  set 
their  seal  upon  this  castle  of  the  Aigues.  What  palace,  what 
royal  castle,  what  houses,  or  works  of  art,  or  golden  brocaded 
stuffs,  shall  we  leave  behind  us  ?  We  rummage  out  our  grand- 
mothers' petticoats  to  cover  our  armchairs.  Like  knavish 
and  selfish  life-tenants,  we  pull  everything  down  that  we  may 
plant  cabbages  where  marvelous  palaces  stood.  But  yesterday 
the  plough  went  over  the  domain  of  Persan,  whence  one  of 
the  richest  families  of  the  parliament  of  Paris  took  its  name ; 
Montmorency  has  fallen  under  the  hammer — Montmorency, 
on  which  one  of  the  Italians  about  Napoleon  spent  incredible 
sums ;  then  there  is  Le  Val,  the  work  of  Regnaud  de  Saint- 
Jean-d'Angely ;  and  Cassan,  built  by  the  mistress  of  a  Prince 
of  Conti;  four  royal  dwelling-places  in  all  destroyed  quite 


THE   PEASANTRY.  13 

lately  in  the  valley  of  the  Oise  alone.  We  are  making  ready 
a  Roman  Campagna  about  Paris  for  the  morrow  of  a  coming 
sack,  when  the  storm-wind  from  the  North  shall  blow  upon 
our  plaster  villas  and  pasteboard  ornaments  and 

"  Now,  just  see,  my  dear  fellow,  what  comes  of  the  habit 
of  writing  journalists'  padding.  Here  am  I,  rounding  off  a 
sort  of  article  for  you.  Can  it  be  that  the  mind,  like  a  high- 
way, has  its  ruts?  I  will  pull  myself  up  at  once,  for  I  am 
robbing  them  at  the  office,  and  robbing  myself,  and,  probably, 
to  make  you  yawn.  There  goes  the  second  bell  for  one  of 
those  abundant  breakfasts,  long  fallen  into  disuse,  in  the  ordi- 
nary way,  of  course,  in  Parisian  houses.  You  shall  have  the 
rest  of  this  to-morrow. 

"  Now  for  the  history  of  my  Arcadia.  In  1815  there  died 
at  the  Aigues  one  of  the  most  celebrated  queans  of  last  cen- 
tury, an  opera  singer,  overlooked  by  the  guillotine,  and  for- 
gotten by  the  aristocracy,  literature,  and  finance  ;  intimate  as 
she  had  been  with  finance,  literature,  and  the  aristocracy  (and 
on  a  bowing  acquaintance  with  the  guillotine),  she  had  fallen 
into  neglect,  like  many  charming  old  ladies,  who  expiate  the 
triumphs  of  youth  in  the  country,  and  take  a  new  love  for  a 
lost  love,  nature  replacing  human  nature.  Such  women  live 
with  the  flowers,  the  scent  of  the  woods,  the  open  sky,  and 
the  light  of  the  sun,  with  everything  that  sings,  or  flutters,  or 
shines,  or  springs  from  the  earth  ;  birds,  or  lizards,  or  blos- 
soms, or  grass.  They  know  nothing  about  these  things ;  they 
do  not  seek  to  explain  it,  but  they  have  a  capacity  for  loving 
left  in  age  ;  and  so  well  do  they  love,  that  dukes  and  marshals, 
old  jealousies  and  bickerings,  and  farmers-general,  and  their 
follies  and  luxurious  extravagance,  and  paste  gems  and  dia- 
monds, and  rouge  and  high-heeled  pantofles,  are  all  forgotten 
for  the  sweets  of  a  country  life. 

"  I  am  in  the  possession  of  valuable  information  which 
throws  a  light  on  Mile.  Laguerre's  later  life  ;  for  I  have  felt 
rather  uncomfortable  now  and  again  about  the  old  age  of  such 


14  THE  PEASANTRY. 

as  Florine,  and  Marietta,  and  Suzanne  du  Val-Noble,  and 
Tullia,  just  like  any  child  who  puzzles  his  wits  to  know  where 
all  the  old  moons  go. 

"Mile.  Laguerre  took  fright  in  1790  at  the  turn  things 
were  taking,  and  came  to  settle  down  at  the  Aigues,  which 
Bouret  had  bought  for  her  (he  spent  several  summers  here  with 
her).  The  fate  of  the  du  Barry  put  her  in  such  a  quaking 
that  she  buried  her  diamonds.  She  was  only  fifty-three  years 
old  at  the  time,  and,  according  to  her  woman  (who  has  mar- 
ried a  gendarme  here,  a  Mme.  Soudry,  whom  they  call  Mad- 
ame the  Mayoress,  a  piece  of  brazen-fronted  flattery), «  Madame 
was  handsomer  than  ever.'  Nature,  my  dear  fellow,  has  her 
reasons  for  what  she  does,  no  doubt,  when  she  treats  these 
creatures  as  pet  children  ;  debauchery  does  not  kill  them  ;  on 
the  contrary,  they  thrive,  and  flourish,  and  renew  their  youth 
upon  it ;  lymphatic  though  they  look,  they  have  nerves  which 
sustain  their  marvelous  framework,  and  bloom  perennially 
from  a  cause  which  would  make  a  virtuous  woman  hideous. 
Decidedly,  fate  is  not  a  moral  agent. 

"  Mile.  Laguerre's  life  here  was  above  reproach,  nay,  might 
it  not  almost  be  classed  with  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,  after  that 
famous  adventure  of  hers  ?  One  evening,  driven  distracted 
by  hopeless  love,  she  fled  from  the  opera  in  her  stage  costume, 
and  spent  the  night  in  weeping  by  the  roadside  out  in  the 
fields  (how  we  have  slandered  love  in  the  time  of  Louis  XV. !). 
The  dawn  was  so  unwonted  a  sight  to  her  that  she  sang  her 
sweetest  airs  to  greet  it.  Some  peasants  gathered  about  her, 
attracted  as  much  by  her  pose  as  by  her  tinsel  fripperies,  and, 
amazed  by  her  gestures,  her  beauty,  and  her  singing,  they  one 
and  all  took  her  for  an  angel,  and  fell  upon  their  knees.  But 
for  Voltaire,  there  would  have  been  another  miracle  at  Bag- 
nolet. 

"  I  know  not  whether  heaven  will  give  much  credit  to  this 
sinner  for  her  tardy  virtue,  for  a  life  of  pleasure  becomes  loath- 
some to  one  so  palled  with  pleasure  as  a  wanton  of  the  stage  of 


THE  PEASANTRY.  15 

the  time  of  Louis  XV.  Mile.  Laguerre  was  born  in  1740. 
She  was  in  the  full  bloom  of  her  beauty  in  1760,  when  they 

nicknamed  M.  de (the  name  escapes  me)  Ministre  de  la 

guerre  (Minister  of  War),  on  account  of  his  liaison  with  her. 

"She  changed  her  name,  which  was  quite  unknown  in  the 
country,  called  herself  Mme.  des  Aigues,  the  better  to  bury 
herself  in  the  district,  and  amused  herself  by  keeping  up  her 
estate  with  extremely  artistic  taste.  When  Bonaparte  became 
First  Consul,  she  rounded  off  her  property  with  some  of  the 
church  lands,  selling  her  diamonds  to  buy  them ;  and,  as  an 
opera-girl  is  scarcely  fitted  to  shine  in  the  management  of 
estates,  she  left  the  land  to  her  steward,  and  devoted  her  per- 
sonal attention  to  her  park,  her  fruit-trees,  and  her  flower- 
garden. 

"  Mademoiselle  being  dead  and  buried  at  Blangy,  the 
notary  from  Soulanges  (the  little  place  between  Ville-aux- 
Fayes  and  Blangy)  made  an  exhaustive  inventory,  and  in 
course  of  time  discovered  the  famous  singer's  next-of-kin ;  she 
herself  knew  nothing  about  them ;  but  eleven  families,  poor 
agricultural  laborers,  living  near  Amiens,  lay  down  in  rags  one 
night  and  woke  up  next  morning  in  sheets  of  gold. 

"The  Aigues  had  to  be  sold,  of  course,  and  Montcornet 
bought  it.  In  various  posts  in  Spain  and  Pomerania  he  had 
managed  to  save  the  requisite  amount,  something  like  eleven 
hundred  thousand  francs.  The  furniture  was  included  in  the 
purchase.  It  seems  as  if  the  fine  place  must  always  belong  to 
some  one  in  the  War  Department.  Doubtless,  the  general 
was  not  insensible  to  the  luxurious  influences  of  his  ground- 
floor  apartments,  and  in  talking  to  the  countess  yesterday  I 
insisted  that  the  Aigues  had  determined  his  marriage. 

"  If  you  are  to  appreciate  the  countess,  my  dear  fellow,  you 
must  know  that  the  general  is  choleric  in  temper,  sanguine  in 
complexion,  and  stands  five  feet  nine  inches;  is  round  as  a 
barrel,  bull-necked,  and  the  owner  of  a  pair  of  shoulders 
for  which  a  smith  might  forge  a  model  cuirass.  Montcornet 


16  THE  PEASANTRY. 

commanded  a  company  of  Cuirassiers  at  Essling  (called  by 
the  Austrians  Gross- Aspern),  and  did  not  lose  his  life  when 
his  magnificent  cavalry  was  pushed  back  into  the  Danube. 
Man  and  horse  managed  to  cross  the  river  on  a  huge  beam  of 
wood.  The  Cuirassiers,  finding  that  the  bridge  was  broken, 
turned  like  heroes  when  Montcornet  gave  the  word,  and  stood 
their  ground  against  the  whole  Austrian  army.  They  took 
up  more  than  thirty  cartloads  of  cuirasses  next  day  on  the 
field,  and  among  themselves  the  Germans  coined  a  special 
nickname  for  the  Cuirassiers— those  'men  of  iron.'* 

*I  set  my  face  on  principle  against  footnotes;  but  the  present  one,  the 
first  which  I  have  permitted  myself,  may  be  excused  on  the  score  of  its 
historical  interest.  It  will  show,  moreover,  that  battle  scenes  have  yet  to  be 
described  in  other  than  the  dry  technical  language  of  military  writers,  who, 
for  three  thousand  years,  can  speak  of  nothing  but  right  wings,  left  wings, 
and  centres  more  or  less  routed,  but  say  not  a  word  of  the  soldier,  his 
heroism,  and  his  hardships.  The  conscientious  manner  in  which  I  am 
setting  about  the  "  Scenes  de  la  vie  militaire  "  has  meant  a  series  of  visits 
to  every  battlefield  at  home  or  abroad  watered  by  French  blood,  so  I  de- 
termined to  see  the  field  of  Wagram.  As  I  reached  the  bank  of  the 
Danube  opposite  Lobau,  I  noticed  ribbed  marks  under  the  soft  grass, 
something  like  the  furrows  in  a  field  of  luzern,  and  asked  the  peasant, 
our  guide,  about  this  new  system  of  agriculture  (for  so  I  took  it  to  be). 
"  That  is  where  the  Cuirassiers  of  the  Imperial  Guard  are  lying,"  he 
said ;  "  they  are  buried  under  those  mounds  that  you  see."  The  words 
sent  a  shiver  through  me;  and  Prince  Friedrich  von  Schwartzenberg, 
who  interpreted  them,  added  that  this  very  peasant  had  driven  the  train 
of  carts  full  of  the  cuirasses  of  the  dead,  and  that  by  one  of  the  grotesque 
accidents  of  war  it  was  the  same  man  who  prepared  Napoleon's  breakfast 
on  the  morning  of  the  battle.  Poor  though  he  was,  he  had  kept  the 
double  napoleon  which  the  Emperor  had  given  him  for  his  eggs  and  milk. 
The  cur6  of  Gross-Aspern  showed  us  over  the  famous  cemetery  where 
Frenchmen  and  Austrians  fought  in  blood  half-way  to  the  knee  with  cour- 
age equally  obstinate  and  equally  splendid  on  either  side.  But  there  was 
a  marble  tablet  in  the  place  on  which  we  concentrated  our  whole  atten- 
tion, the  cur6  explaining  how  that  it  was  erected  to  the  memory  of  the 
owner  of  Gross-Aspern,  killed  on  the  third  day  of  the  fight,  and  that  it 
was  the  only  return  made  to  the  family.  Then  he  said,  with  deep  sadness 


THE  PEASANTRY.  17 

"  Montcornet  looks  like  a  hero  of  ancient  times.  He  has 
strong  muscular  arms,  a  broad,  resonant  chest,  a  head  striking 
from  its  leonine  character,  and  a  voice  that  can  sound  the 
command  to  '  Charge  ! '  above  the  din  of  battle ;  but  his  is  the 
courage  of  a  sanguine  temperament — unreasoning  and  uncal- 
culating.  Montcornet  is  an  awe-inspiring  figure  at  first  sight, 
like  many  another  general  whom  the  soldier's  commonsense, 
the  wariness  of  a  man  who  continually  takes  his  life  in  his 
hand,  and  the  habit  of  command  seemingly  raise  above  other 
men.  You  take  him  for  a  Titan,  but  he  harbors  a  dwarf  in 
him,  like  the  pasteboard  giant  who  greeted  Queen  Elizabeth  at 
the  gate  of  Kenilworth  Castle.  Choleric  and  kind,  full  of  the 
pride  of  the  Empire,  he  has  the  caustic  tongue  of  a  soldier, 
quick  with  a  word,  quicker  still  with  a  blow.  The  man  who 
made  so  grand  a  figure  on  the  battlefield  becomes  unbearable 
in  domestic  life,  all  his  ideas  of  love  were  learned  in  the  camp, 
his  is  that  soldiers'  love  for  whom  the  ancients  (ingenious 
makers  of  myths)  discovered  a  tutelary  deity  in  Eros — off- 
spring of  Mars  and  Venus.  Those  delicious  religious  chron- 

in  his  tones,  "  That  was  a  time  of  great  misery  ;  a  time  of  great  promises ; 
but  now  to-day  is  the  day  of  forgetfulness."  The  words  seemed  to 
me  to  be  grandly  simple ;  but  when  I  had  thought  the  matter  over,  the 
apparent  ingratitude  of  the  House  of  Austria  seemed  to  me  to  be  justi- 
fiable. Neither  peoples  nor  kings  are  rich  enough  to  reward  all  the  devo- 
tion shown  iu  the  hour  of  supreme  struggle.  Let  those  who  serve  a  cause 
with  a  lurking  thought  of  reward  set  a  price  on  their  blood,  and  turn 
condottieri !  Those  who  handle  sword  or  pen  for  their  country  should 
think  of  nothing  but  how  to  "play  the  man,"  as  our  forefathers  used  to 
say,  and  accept  nothing,  not  even  glory  itself,  save  as  a  lucky  accident. 

Three  times  they  stormed  that  famous  cemetery;  the  third  time  Massena 
made  his  famous  address  to  his  men  from  the  coach-body  in  which  they 
carried  the  wounded  hero,  "  You've  five  sous  a  day,  you  blackguards,  and 
I've  forty  millions,  and  you  let  me  go  in  front!  "  Every  one  knows  the 
order  of  the  clay  that  the  Emperor  sent  to  his  lieutenant  by  M.  de  Sainte- 
Croix,  who  swam  the  Danube  three  times,  "  Die,  or  take  the  village  again ; 
the  existence  of  the  army  is  at  stake  J  The  bridges  are  broken."— THE 
AUTHOR. 
2 


18  THE  PEASANTRY. 

iclers  admit  half  a  score  of  different  Loves.  Make  a  study  of 
the  paternity  and  attributes  of  each,  and  you  will  provide 
yourself  with  a  social  nomenclature  of  the  completest  kind. 
We  imagine  that  we  invent  this  or  that,  do  we?  When  the 
globe,  like  a  dreaming  sick  man,  turns  again  through  another 
cycle  and  our  continents  become  oceans,  the  Frenchman  of 
the  coming  time  will  find  a  steam-engine,  a  cannon,  a  copy  of 
a  daily  paper,  and  a  charter  lying  wrapped  about  with  weeds 
at  the  bottom  of  our  present  Atlantic. 

"  Now,  the  countess,  my  dear  boy,  is  a  little  woman,  fragile 
and  delicate  and  timid.  What  say  you  to  this  marriage? 
Any  one  who  knows  the  world,  knows  that  this  sort  of  thing 
happens  so  often  that  a  well-assorted  marriage  is  an  exception. 
I  came  here  to  see  how  this  tiny,  slender  woman  holds  the 
leading  strings;  for  she  has  this  huge,  tall,  square-built 
general  of  hers  quite  as  well  in  hand  as  ever  he  kept  his 
Cuirassiers. 

"  If  Montcornet  raises  his  voice  before  his  Virginie,  madame 
lays  her  finger  on  her  lips,  and  he  holds  his  tongue.  The  old 
soldier  goes  to  smoke  his  pipe  or  cigar  in  a  summer-house  fifty 
paces  away  from  the  castle,  and  perfumes  himself  before  he 
comes  back.  He  is  proud  of  his  subjection.  If  anything  is 
suggested,  he  turns  to  her,  like  a  bear  infatuated  for  grapes, 
with  'That  is  as  madame  pleases.'  He  comes  to  his  wife's 
room,  the  paved  floor  creaking  like  boards  under  his  heavy 
tread  ;  and  if  she  cries  in  a  startled  voice,  '  Do  not  come  in  ! ' 
he  describes  a  right  wheel  in  military  fashion,  meekly  remark- 
ing, '  You  will  let  me  know  when  I  may  come  and  speak  to 
you,'  and  this  from  the  voice  that  roared  to  his  Cuirassiers  on 
the  banks  of  the  Danube,  '  Boys,  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to 
die,  and  to  die  handsomely,  since  there  is  nothing  else  to  be 
done  ! '  A  touching  little  thing  I  once  heard  him  say  of  his 
wife,  'I  not  only  love  her,  I  reverence  her.'  Sometimes,  in 
one  of  his  fits  of  rage,  when  his  wrath  knows  no  bounds  and 
pours  out  in  torrents  that  carry  all  before  it,  the  little  woman 


THE  PEASANTRY.  19 

goes  to  her  room  and  leaves  him  to  storm.  But  four  or  five 
days  later  she  will  say,  '  Don't  put  yourself  in  a  passion,  you 
will  break  a  bloodvessel  on  your  lungs,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
pain  it  gives  me,'  and  the  Lion  of  Essling  takes  to  flight  to 
dry  the  tears  in  his  eyes.  If  he  comes  into  the  salon  when 
we  are  deep  in  conversation,  'Leave  us,'  she  says,  'he  is 
reading  something  to  me,'  and  the  general  goes. 

"  None  but  strong  men,  great-natured  and  hot-tempered, 
among  these  thunderbolts  of  battle,  diplomates  with  Olympian 
brows  and  men  of  genius,  are  capable  of  these  courses  of  con- 
fidence, of  generosity  for  weakness,  of  constant  protection 
and  love  without  jealousy,  of  this  bonhomie  with  a  woman. 
Faith  !  I  rate  the  countess'  science  as  far  above  crabbed  and 
peevish  virtues  as  the  satin  of  a  settee  above  the  Utrecht  vel- 
vet of  a  dingy  back-parlor  sofa. 

"Six  days  have  I  spent  in  this  admirable  country,  dear  fel- 
low, and  I  am  not  tired  yet  of  admiring  the  wonders  of  this 
park-land  with  the  dark  forests  rising  above  it,  and  the  paths 
beside  the  streams.  Everything  here  fascinates  me — nature, 
and  the  stillness  of  nature,  quiet  enjoyment,  the  easy  life 
which  nature  offers.  Ah  !  here  is  real  literature,  there  are 
never  defects  of  style  in  a  meadow ;  and  complete  happiness 
would  be  complete  forgetfulness  even  of  the  'Debats.' 

"You  ought  not  to  need  to  be  told  that  we  have  had  two 
wet  mornings.  While  the  countess  slept,  and  Montcornet 
tramped  over  his  property,  driven  to  keep  the  promise  so 
rashly  given,  I  have  been  writing  to  you. 

"Hitherto,  though  I  was  born  in  Alen<pon,  the  son  of  an 
old  justice  and  a  prefect  (if  what  they  tell  me  is  true),  though 
I  am  something  of  a  judge  of  grass-land,  I  had  heard  of  such 
things  as  estates  that  brought  in  four  or  five  thousand  francs  a 
month,  but  I  regarded  these  as  idle  tales.  Money,  for  me, 
has  but  four  hideous  convertible  terms — work,  booksellers, 
journalism,  and  politics.  When  shall  we  have  an  estate  where 
money  grows  out  of  the  earth,  in  some  pretty  place  in  the 


20  THE  PEASANTRY. 

country.     That  is  what  I  wish  you  in  the  name  of  the  theatre, 
the  press,  and  literature.     Amen  ! 

"How  Florine  will  envy  the  lamented  Mile.  Laguerre! 
Our  modern  Bourets  have  lost  the  old  French  lordly  instinct 
which  taught  them  how  to  live ;  they  will  club  three  together 
to  take  a  box  at  the  opera  and  go  shares  in  a  pleasure ;  no 
longer  do  they  cut  down  magnificently  bound  quartos  to 
match  the  octavos  on  their  shelves.  It  is  as  much  as  they 
will  do  to  buy  a  book  in  paper-covers.  What  are  we  coming 
to?  Good-by,  children ;  keep  your  benign  Blondet  in  loving 
remembrance." 

If  this  letter,  which  dropped  from  the  idlest  pen  in  France, 
had  not  been  preserved  by  a  miraculous  chance,  it  would  be  all 
but  impossible  now  to  describe  the  Aigues  as  it  used  to  be,  and 
without  this  description  the  twice  tragical  tale  of  the  events 
which  took  place  there  would,  perhaps,  be  less  interesting. 

Plenty  of  people  expect,  no  doubt,  to  see  the  general's 
cuirass  lighted  up  by  a  lightning  flash,  to  see  his  wrath 
kindled,  his  fury  descend  like  a  waterspout  on  this  little 
woman ;  in  fact,  to  find  the  usual  curtain  scene  of  modern 
drama — a  tragedy  in  a  bedroom.  How  should  this  modern 
tragedy  develop  itself  in  the  pretty  salon  beyond  the  bluish 
enameled  doorways,  garrulous  with  their  mythological  loves  ? 
Strange  bright  birds  were  painted  over  the  ceiling  and  the 
shutters ;  china  monsters  were  splitting  their  sides  with 
laughter  on  the  mantel-shelf;  the  blue  dragons  played  on  the 
rich  vases,  twisting  their  tails  in  spiral  scrolls  along  the  rim 
which  some  Japanese  artist  enameled  with  a  maze  of  color 
to  please  his  fancy,  and  the  very  chairs,  lounges,  sofas,  con- 
sole tables,  and  stands  dwelt  in  an  atmosphere  of  contempla- 
tive idleness  enervating  to  body  and  mind.  No  ;  this  tragedy 
extends  beyond  the  sphere  of  domestic  life,  it  is  played  out 
upon  a  higher  or  a  lower  stage.  Do  not  look  for  passion 
here;  the  bare  truth  will  be  only  too  dramatic.  And  the 


THE  PEASANTRY.  21 

historian,  moreover,  should  never  forget  that  it  is  his  duty  to 
allot  to  each  his  part ;  that  the  rich  and  the  poor  are  equal 
before  his  pen ;  and  for  him  the  figure  of  the  peasant  has  the 
greatness  of  his  miseries,  the  rich  man  the  pettiness  of  his 
absurdities.  After  all,  the  rich  have  passions,  the  peasant 
knows  nothing  beyond  natural  cravings,  and,  therefore,  the 
peasant's  lot  is  doubly  poor ;  and  if  it  is  a  political  necessity 
that  his  aggressions  should  be  sternly  checked,  from  a  human 
and  religious  point  of  view  he  should  be  treated  reverently. 


II. 

A   BUCOLIC   OVERLOOKED   BY  VIRGIL. 

When  a  Parisian  drops  down  into  some  country  place  and 
finds  himself  cut  off  from  all  his  accustomed  ways,  he  soon 
finds  time  hang  heavily  on  his  hands  in  spite  of  the  utmost 
ingenuity  on  the  part  of  his  entertainers.  Indeed,  your  host 
and  hostess  being  aware  that  the  pleasures  of  a  tete-a-tete  (by 
nature  fugitive)  cannot  endure  for  ever,  will  tell  you  placidly 
that  "you  will  find  it  very  dull  here;"  and,  in  fact,  any 
one  who  wishes  to  know  the  delights  of  a  life  in  the  country 
must  have  some  interest  to  keep  him  in  the  country,  must 
know  its  toils  and  the  alternations  of  pain  and  pleasure  that 
make  up  harmony — the  eternal  symbol  of  human  life. 

When  the  visitor  has  recovered  from  the  effects  of  the 
journey,  made  up  arrears  of  slumber,  and  has  fallen  in  with 
country  ways  of  life,  a  Parisian  who  is  neither  a  sportsman 
nor  a  farmer,  and  wears  thin  walking  shoes,  is  apt  to  discover 
that  the  early  morning  hours  pass  slowest  of  all.  The  women 
are  still  asleep  or  at  their  toilets,  and  invisible  until  breakfast 
time  ;  the  master  of  the  house  went  out  early  to  see  after  his 
affairs;  and  from  eight  o'clock  till  eleven,  therefore  (for  in 
nearly  all  castles  they  breakfast  at  that  hour),  a  Parisian  is  left 
to  his  own  society.  He  seeks  amusement  in  the  small  details 


22  THE  PEASANTRY. 

of  his  toilet,  a  short-lived  expedient ;  and  unless  a  man  of 
letters  has  brought  down  with  him  some  bit  of  work  (which 
he  finds  impossible  to  do,  and  takes  back  to  town  untouched, 
and  with  no  added  knowledge  of  it  save  of  the  difficulties  at 
the  outset),  he  is  reduced  to  pace  the  alleys  in  the  park,  to 
gape  and  gaze  and  count  the  tree-trunks.  The  easier  a  life  is, 
the  more  irksome  it  grows,  unless  you  happen  to  belong  to  the 
Shaker  community  or  to  the  worshipful  company  of  amateur 
carpenters  or  bird-stuffers. 

If,  like  the  landowners,  you  were  to  remain  in  the  country 
for  the  rest  of  your  days,  you  would  provide  your  tedium  with 
some  hobby — geological,  mineralogical,  botanical,  or  what 
not ;  but  no  sensible  man  will  contract  a  vice  that  may  last 
through  his  life  for  the  sake  of  killing  time  for  a  fortnight. 
The  most  magnificent  country-house  soon  becomes  weari- 
some to  those  who  own  nothing  of  it  but  the  view ;  the 
beauties  of  nature  seem  very  paltry  compared  with  the 
theatrical  representations  of  them,  and  Parisian  life  sparkles 
from  every  facet.  If  a  man  is  not  under  the  particular  spell 
which  keeps  him  attached  (like  Blondet)  to  spots  honored  by 
her  footsteps  and  lighted  by  her  eyes,  he  is  fit  to  envy  the 
birds  their  wings,  that  so  he  may  return  to  the  ceaseless  and 
thrilling  dramatic  spectacle  of  Paris  and  its  harrowing  strug- 
gles for  existence. 

From  the  length  of  the  journalist's  letter,  any  shrewd  ob- 
server should  guess  that  the  writer  had  mentally  and  physically 
reached  that  peculiar  phase  of  repletion  consequent  on  satisfied 
desire  and  glut  of  happiness,  which  is  perfectly  illustrated 
by  the  state  of  the  domestic  goose,  when,  fattened  by  force, 
with  head  declining  upon  a  too  protuberant  crop,  the  victim 
stands  planted  on  both  feet,  unable  and  unwilling  to  give  so 
much  as  a  glance  to  the  most  tempting  morsel.  When,  there- 
fore, Blondet  had  finished  his  formidable  letter,  he  felt  a  long- 
ing to  go  beyond  the  bounds  of  this  Armida's  garden,  to  find 
anything  to  enliven  the  deadly  dullness  of  the  early  hours  of 


THE  PEASANTRY.  23 

the  day,  for  between  breakfast  and  dinner  he  spent  his  time 
with  his  hostess,  who  knew  how  to  make  it  pass  quickly. 

Mme.  de  Montcornet  had  kept  a  clever  man  a  whole  month 
in  the  country,  and  had  not  seen  the  feigned  smile  of  satiety 
on  his  face,  nor  detected  the  incipient  yawn  of  boredom  which 
can  never  be  concealed.  This  is  one  of  a  woman's  greatest 
triumphs.  An  affection  proof  against  such  tests  should  last 
for  ever.  Why  women  do  not  put  their  lovers  on  a  trial,  which 
neither  fool  nor  egoist  nor  narrow  nature  can  abide,  is  utterly 
incomprehensible.  Philip  II.  himself,  that  Alexander  of  dis- 
simulation, would  have  begun  to  blab  his  secrets  after  a 
month's  tete-a-tete  in  the  country.  For  which  reason  kings 
spend  their  lives  in  a  perpetual  bustle  and  racket,  and  never 
allow  anybody  to  see  them  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
.  at  a  time. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  the  delicate  attentions  of  one  of  the 
most  charming  women  in  Paris,  Emile  Blondet  played  truant 
with  a  relish  long  forgotten.  The  day  when  his  letter  was 
finished  he  told  Francois  (the  head-servant,  specially  appointed 
to  wait  upon  him)  to  call  him  early.  He  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  explore  the  valley  of  the  Avonne. 

The  Avonne  at  its  head  is  a  small  river.  Many  streams 
that  rise  round  about  the  Aigues  go  to  swell  it  below  Conches, 
and  at  Ville-aux-Fayes  it  joins  one  of  the  largest  affluents  of 
the  Seine.  The  Avonne  is  navigable  for  rafts  for  four  leagues; 
Jean  Rotivet's  invention  has  given  all  their  commercial  value 
to  the  forests  of  Aigues,  Soulanges,  and  Ronquerolles,  on 
the  heights  above  the  picturesque  river.  The  park  of  the 
Aigues  takes  up  most  of  the  valley  between  the  river  that  flows 
below  the  wooded  heights  on  either  side,  called  the  Forest  of 
the  Aigues,  and  the  king's  highway,  mapped  out  on  the  ho- 
rizon by  a  line  of  old  warped  elm-trees  running  parallel  with 
the  hills  (so  called)  of  the  Avonne,  the  lowest  steps  of  the 
grand  amphitheatre  of  the  Morvan. 

To  use  a  homely  metaphor,  the  shape  of  the  park  was  some- 


24  THE  PEASANTRY. 

thing  like  a  huge  fish  lying  in  the  valley  bottom,  with  the 
head  at  Conches  and  the  tail  at  Blangy,  the  length  much  ex- 
ceeding the  breadth,  and  the  broadest  part  in  the  middle  full 
five  times  the  width  of  the  valley  at  Blangy,  or  six  times  the 
width  at  Conches.  Possibly  the  lay  of  the  land,  thus  set 
among  three  villages  (Soulanges,  whence  you  plunge  down 
into  this  Eden,  being  but  a  league  away),  may  have  assisted 
to  foment  discord,  and  suggested  the  excesses  which  form  the 
chief  subject  of  this  scene ;  for  if  passing  travelers  look  down 
on  the  paradise  of  the  Aigues  from  Ville-aux-Fayes  with  envious 
eyes,  how  should  the  well-to-do  townsfolk  of  Soulanges  and 
Ville-aux-Fayes  feel  less  covetous  when  they  behold  it  every 
day  of  their  lives? 

This  last  bit  of  topographical  detail  is  needed  if  the  position 
is  to  be  understood,  as  well  as  the  why  and  wherefore  of  four 
park  gates  at  the  Aigues ;  for  the  whole  park  was  shut  in  by 
walls,  save  where  a  ha-ha  fence  had  been  substituted  for  the 
sake  of  the  view.  The  four  gates,  called  respectively  the 
Conches  gate,  the  Avonne,  the  Avenue,  and  Blangy  gates, 
were  so  full  of  the  character  of  the  different  times  in  which 
they  were  built,  that  they  shall  be  described  in  their  place 
for  the  benefit  of  archaeologists  ;  but  the  subject  shall  re- 
ceive the  concise  treatment  which  Blondet  gave  to  the  avenue 
itself. 

For  a  week  the  illustrious  editor  of  the  "Journal  des 
Debats"  had  taken  his  walks  abroad  with  the  countess,  until 
he  knew  by  heart  the  Chinese  pavilion,  bridges,  islands, 
kiosks,  hermitage,  chalet,  ruined  temple,  Babylonish  ice- 
house ;  in  short,  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  the  gardens  planned 
by  an  architect  with  nine  hundred  acres  at  his  disposal.  Now, 
therefore,  he  felt  inclined  to  trace  the  course  of  the  Avonne, 
which  his  host  and  hostess  daily  praised  to  him.  Every  even- 
ing he  had  planned  the  excursion,  every  morning  he  forgot 
all  about  it.  And,  indeed,  above  the  park  the  Avonne  is 
like  an  Alpine  torrent,  hollowing  out  its  rocky  bed,  and  fash- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  25 

ioning  deep  pools,  where  it  sinks  underground.  Here  and 
there  is  a  waterfall,  when  some  little  stream  unexpectedly 
splashes  into  it ;  here  and  there  it  broadens  out  like  a  minia- 
ture Loire  and  ripples  over  sandy  shallows,  but  it  is  a  stream 
so  changeful  in  its  moods  that  rafts  are  out  of  the  question. 
Blondet  struck  up  through  the  park  by  the  shortest  way  to  the 
Conches  gate,  which  deserves  a  few  words  of  description,  if 
only  for  the  sake  of  the  historical  associations  connected  with 
the  property. 

The  founder  of  the  Aigues  was  a  cadet  of  the  house  of  Sou- 
langes,  who  married  an  heiress,  and  was  minded  to  snap  his 
fingers  at  his  oldest  brother,  an  amiable  sentiment  to  which 
we  also  owe  the  Isola-Bella,  the  fairyland  on  Lake  Maggiore. 
In  the  Middle  Ages  the  castle  of  the  Aigues  stood  beside  the 
Avonne ;  but  of  the  whole  stronghold  only  one  gateway  re- 
mained, a  porched  gateway  of  the  kind  usual  in  fortified 
towns,  with  a  pepper-box  turret  on  either  side  of  it.  The 
ponderous  masonry  above  the  arch  was  gay  with  wall-flowers, 
and  pierced  by  three  great  mullion  windows.  A  spiral  stair- 
case had  been  contrived  to  give  access  to  two  dwelling-rooms 
in  the  first  turret,  and  to  a  kitchen  in  the  second.  On  the 
roof  ridge  of  the  porch,  steep-pitched,  like  all  such  construc- 
tions in  the  olden  time,  stood  a  couple  of  weather-cocks, 
adorned  with  quaint  ironwork.  Not  many  places  can  boast 
of  a  town  hall  so  imposing. 

The  escutcheon  of  the  Soulanges  family  was  still  visible  on 
the  keystone  of  the  arch  of  a  hard  stone  selected  for  its  pur- 
pose by  the  craftsman  whose  chisel  had  engraven  the  arms  of 
Soulanges — azure,  three  palmer1  s  staves  per  pale  argent,  five 
crosslets  fitchy  sable  on  a  fess  gules  over  all,  differenced  by  a 
mark  of  cadency.  Blondet  spelt  out  the  device  Je  soule  agir 
— It  is  my  wont  to  act — a  bit  of  word-play  such  as  crusaders 
loved  to  make  on  their  names,  and  an  excellent  maxim  which 
Montcornet  to  his  sorrow  neglected,  as  shall  be  seen.  The 
heavy,  old  wooden  door  was  heavier  yet  by  reason  of  the  iron 


26  THE  PEASANTRY, 

studs  arranged  in  groups  of  five  upon  it.  A  pretty  girl  opened 
it  for  Blondet ;  and  a  keeper,  awakened  by  the  groaning  of 
the  hinges,  put  his  head  out  of  the  window.  The  man  was  in 
his  night-shirt. 

"  What  is  this?  Our  keepers  are  still  abed  at  this  time  of 
day,  are  they?"  thought  the  Parisian,  who  imagined  that  he 
knew  all  about  forest  customs. 

With  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  walk  he  reached  the  springs  of 
the  river,  and  from  the  upper  end  of  the  valley  at  Conches 
the  whole  enchanting  view  lay  before  his  eyes.  A  description 
of  that  landscape,  like  the  history  of  France,  might  fill  a  thou- 
sand volumes,  or  could  be  condensed  into  a  single  book. 
Let  a  couple  of  phrases  suffice. 

Picture  a  bulging  mass  of  rock,  covered  with  the  velvet  of 
dwarf  shrubs,  placed  so  that  it  looks  like  some  huge  tortoise 
set  across  the  Avonne  which  wears  its  way  out  at  the  foot,  a 
rock  that  describes  an  arch  through  which  you  behold  a  little 
sheet  of  water,  clear  as  a  mirror,  where  Avonne  seems  to  sleep 
before  it  breaks  in  waterfalls  over  the  huge  boulders  where 
the  dwarf  willows,  supple  as  springs,  perpetually  yield  to  the 
force  of  the  current,  only  to  fly  back  again. 

Up  above  the  waterfalls  the  hillsides  are  cut  sharply  away, 
like  some  Rhineland crag  clad  with  mosses  and  heather;  they 
are  rifted,  too,  like  the  Rhine  crag,  by  strata  of  schist,  where 
springs  of  white  water  bubble  out  here  and  there,  each  one 
above  a  little  space  of  grass,  always  fresh  and  green,  which 
serves  as  a  cup  for  the  spring ;  and  finally,  by  way  of  con- 
trast to  the  wild  solitude  of  nature,  you  see  the  outposts  of 
civilization  :  Conches,  and  the  gardens  on  the  edge  of  the 
fields,  and  beyond  the  picturesque  wilderness  the  assembled 
roofs  of  the  village  and  the  church  spire. 

Behold  the  two  phrases  !  But  the  sunrise,  the  pure  air,  the 
dew  crystals,  the  blended  music  of  woods  and  water,  these 
must  be  divined ! 

"  Faith,  it  is  nearly  as  fine  as  the  opera  !  "  said  Blondet  to 


THE  PEASANTRY.  27 

himself,  as  he  clambered  up  the  torrent  bed  of  the  Avonne. 
The  caprices  of  the  higher  stream  brought  out  all  the  depth, 
stillness,  and  straightness  of  the  Avonne  in  the  valley,  shut  in 
by  tall  trees  and  the  forest  of  the  Aigues.  He  did  not,  how- 
ever, pursue  his  morning  walk  very  far.  He  was  soon  brought 
to  a  stand  by  a  peasant,  one  of  the  subordinate  characters  so 
necessary  to  the  action  of  this  drama  that  it  is  doubtful 
whether  they  or  the  principal  characters  play  the  more  im- 
portant parts. 

Blondet,  that  clever  writer,  reached  a  boulder-strewn  spot, 
where  the  main  stream  was  pent  as  if  between  two  doors, 
when  he  saw  the  man  standing  so  motionless  that  his  journal- 
ist's curiosity  would  have  been  aroused,  even  if  the  figure  and 
clothing  of  the  living  statue  had  not  already  puzzled  him  not 
a  little. 

In  that  poverty-stricken  figure  he  saw  an  old  man  such  as 
Charlet  loved  to  draw ;  the  strongly  built  frame,  schooled  to 
endure  hardship,  might  have  belonged  to  one  of  the  troopers 
depicted  by  the  soldier's  Homer;  the  rugged,  purplish-red 
countenance  gave  him  kinship  with  Charlet's  immortal  scav- 
engers, unschooled  by  resignation.  An  almost  bald  head  was 
protected  from  the  inclemency  of  the  weather  by  a  coarse  felt 
hat,  the  brim  stitched  to  the  crown  here  and  there,  and  from 
tinder  the  hat  one  or  two  locks  of  hair  straggled  out;  an 
artist  would  have  given  four  francs  an  hour  for  the  chance  of 
studying  from  the  life  that  dazzling  snow,  arranged  after  the 
fashion  of  the  Eternal  Father  of  classic  art.  Yet  there  was 
something  in  the  way  in  which  the  cheeks  sank  in,  continuing 
the  lines  of  the  mouth,  that  plainly  said  that  this  toothless  old 
person  went  more  often  to  the  barrel  than  to  the  bread-pan. 
The  short,  white  bristles  of  a  scanty  beard  gave  an  expression 
of  menace  to  his  face.  A  pair  of  little  eyes,  oblique  as  a  pig's 
and  too  small  for  his  huge  countenance,  suggested  a  combina- 
tion of  sloth  and  cunning ;  but  at  that  moment,  as  he  pored 
upon  the  river,  fire  seemed  to  flash  from  them. 


28  THE  PEASANTRY i 

For  all  clothing  the  poor  man  wore  a  blouse,  which  had 
been  blue  in  former  times,  and  a  pair  of  trousers  of  the  coarse 
canvas  that  they  use  in  Paris' for  packing  material.  Any  town- 
dweller  would  have  shuddered  at  the  sight  of  his  broken 
sabots,  without  so  much  as  a  little  straw  by  way  of  padding 
in  the  cracks.  As  for  the  blouse  and  trousers,  they  had 
reached  the  stage  when  a  textile  fabric  is  fit  for  nothing  but 
the  pulping-trough  of  a  paper-mill. 

Blondet,  as  he  gazed  at  the  rustic  Diogenes,  was  convinced 
that  the  typical  peasant  of  old  tapestry,  old  pictures,  and  carv- 
ings was  not,  as  he  had  hitherto  imagined,  a  purely  fancy 
portrait.  Nor  did  he  utterly-  condemn,  as  heretofore,  the 
productions  of  the  School  of  Ugliness ;  he  began  to  see  that 
in  man  the  beautiful  is  but  a  gratifying  exception  to  a  general 
rule,  a  chimerical  vision  in  which  he  struggles  to  believe. 

"I  wonder  what  the  ideas  and  manner  of  life  of  such  a 
human  being  may  be  1  What  is  he  thinking  about  ?  "  Blondet 
asked  himself,  and  curiosity  seized  upon  him.  "Is  that  my 
fellow-man  ?  We  have  only  our  human  shape  in  common, 
and  yet " 

He  looked  at  the  hard  tissues  peculiar  to  those  who  lead  an 
out-of-door  life,  accustomed  to  all  weathers,  and  to  excessive 
heat  and  cold,  and  to  hardships,  in  fact,  of  every  kind,  a 
training  which  turns  the  skin  to  something  like  tanned  leather, 
and  makes  the  sinews  well-nigh  pain-proof,  like  those  of  the 
Arabs  or  Cossacks. 

"  That  is  one  of  Fenimore  Cooper's  redskins,"  said  Blondet 
to  himself ;  "  there  is  no  need  to  go  to  America  to  study  the 
savage." 

The  Parisian  was  not  two  paces  away,  but  the  old  man  did 
not  look  round ;  he  stood  and  stared  at  the  opposite  bank 
with  the  fixity  that  glazes  a  Hindoo  fakir's  eyes  and  induces 
anchylosis  of  every  joint.  This  kind  of  magnetism  is  more 
infectious  than  people  think ,  it  was  too  much  for  Blondet, 
he,  too,  began  at  last  to  stare  into  the  water. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  29 

A  good  quarter  of  an  hour  went  by  in  this  way,  and  Blondet 
still  found  no  sufficient  motive  for  the  proceeding.  "  Well, 
my  good  man,"  he  asked,  "what  is  there  over  yonder?" 

"  Hush-sh  !  "  the  other  said,  with  a  sign  to  Blondet  that 
he  must  not  disturb  the  air  with  his  voice.  "You  will  scare 
her " 

"Who?" 

"An  otter,  mister.  If  her  hears  us,  her's  just  the  one  to 
give  we  the  slip  and  get  away  under  water.  There  ain't  no 
need  to  say  that  her  jumped  in  there.  There  !  Do  you  see 
the  water  a-bubbling  up  ?  Oh,  her's  lying  in  wait  for  a  fish  ; 
but  when  her  tries  to  come  out,  my  boy  will  catch  hold  of 
her.  It's  like  this,  you  see,  an  otter  is  the  rarest  thing.  It 
is  a  scientific  animal  to  catch,  fine  and  delicate  eating,  all  the 
same ;  they  will  give  me  ten  francs  for  it  at  the  Aigues,  seeing 
as  the  lady  there  doesn't  eat  meat  of  a  Friday,  and  to-morrow 
is  Friday.  Time  was  when  the  lady  that's  dead  and  gone  has 
paid  me  as  much  as  twenty  francs  for  one,  and  her  would  let 
me  have  the  skin  back,  too  !  Mouche,"  he  called  in  a  loud 
whisper,  "  keep  a  good  lookout " 

On  the  other  side  of  this  branch  stream  of  the  Avonne, 
Blondet  saw  a  pair  of  eyes  gleaming  like  a  cat's  eyes  from 
under  a  clump  of  alders ;  then  he  made  out  the  brown  fore- 
head and  shock-head  of  a  boy  of  twelve  or  thereabouts,  who 
was  lying  there  flat  on  his  stomach ;  the  urchin  pointed  out 
the  otter,  with  a  sign  which  indicated  that  he  was  keeping 
the  animal  in  view.  The  consuming  anxiety  of  the  old  man 
and  the  child  got  the  better  of  Blondet ;  he  fell  a  willing 
victim  to  the  devouring  demon  of  Sport. 

Now  that  demon  has  two  claws,  called  hope  and  curiosity, 
by  which  he  leads  you  whither  he  will. 

"You  sell  the  skin  to  the  hatters,"  the  old  man  went  on. 
"  So  fine  it  is  and  soft.  They  make  caps  of  it " 

"  Do  you  believe  that,  my  good  man  ?  " 

"  Of  course,  mister,  you  ought  to  know  a  lot  more  about 


30  THE  PEASANTRY. 

it  than  I  do,  for  all  I  am  seventy  years  old,"  said  the  old 
person  meekly  and  respectfully ;  then,  with  unctuous  insinua- 
tion— «  and  you  can  tell  me,  no  doubt,  why  coach-guards  and 
innkeepers  think  such  a  lot  of  it,  sir  ?  " 

Blondet,  that  master  of  irony,  had  his  suspicions ;  the  word 
"scientific"  had  not  escaped  him;  he  remembered  the 
Marechal  de  Richelieu,  and  fancied  that  this  old  rustic  was 
laughing  at  him,  but  the  simplicity  of  the  man's  manner  and 
stupid  expression  dismissed  the  idea. 

"  There  were  plenty  of  otters  to  be  seen  hereabouts  when  I 
was  young,  the  country  suits  them,"  the  good  soul  went  on  ; 
"  but  they  have  hunted  them  down  so  much,  that  if  we  see  a 
tail  of  one  on  'em  once  in  seven  years,  it  is  the  most  you  will 
do.  There's  the  sub-perfect  over  at  Ville-aux-Fayes — you  know 
him,  mister?  He  is  a  nice  young  man,  like  you,  for  all  he  is 
a  Parisian,  and  he  is  fond  of  curiosities.  So,  knowing  that  I 
was  good  at  catching  otters,  for  I  know  them  as  well  as  ever 
you  know  your  alphabet,  he  just  says  to  me  like  this,  '  Father 
Fourchon,  when  you  find  an  otter,  you  bring  it  to  me,'  says 
he,  '  and  I'll  pay  you  well  for  it ;  and  if  her  should  have 
white  dots  on  her  back,'  he  says,  '  I  would  give  you  thirty 
francs  for  her.'  That's  what  he  says  to  me  on  the  quay  at 
Ville-aux-Fayes,  and  that's  the  truth ;  true  as  I  believe  in  God 
the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  There  is  another 
learned  man  over  at  Soulanges,  Monsieur  Gourdon,  our 
doctor  he  is,  they  say  he  is  making  a  cabinet  of  natural 
history;  there  is  not  his  like  in  Dijon,  he  is  the  learnedest 
man  in  these  parts  in  fact,  and  he  would  give  me  a  good  price 
for  her !  He  knows  how  to  stuff  man  and  beast !  And 
there's  my  boy  here  stands  me  out  that  this  one  is  white  all 
wer!  'If  that  is  so,'  I  says  to  him,  'the  Lord  A'mighty 
have  borne  us  in  mind  this  morning !  '  Look  at  the  water 
a-bubbling,  do  you  see  ?  Oh  !  her's  there.  Her  lives  in  a 
kind  of  a  burrow  on  land,  but,  for  all  that,  her'll  stop  under 
water  whole  days  together.  Ah  !  her  heard  you,  mister,  her 


THE  PEASANTRY.  31 

is  suspicious,  for  there  ain't  no  animile  cleverer  than  that  one ; 
her  is  worse  than  a  woman." 

"Perhaps  that  is  why  the  otter  is  called  her,"  suggested 
Blondet. 

"  Lord,  mister,  being  from  Paris  as  you  are,  you  know 
better  about  it  than  we  do.  But  you  would  have  done  us  a 
better  turn  by  lying  a-bed  of  a  morning,  because — do  you  see 
that  ripple-like  over  yonder  ?  Her's  getting  away  underneath. 
Come  along,  Mouche !  Her  has  heard  the  gentleman,  her 
has,  and  her  is  just  the  one  to  keep  us  here  cooling  our  heels 
till  midnight ;  let  us  be  going.  There's  our  thirty  francs 
swimming  away." 

Mouche  got  up,  but  wistfully.  He  was  a  touzle-headed 
youth,  with  a  brown  face,  like  an  angel's  in  some  fifteenth 
century  picture.  To  all  intents  and  purposes,  he  wore 
breeches,  for  his  trousers  ended  at  the  knee  in  a  jagged  fringe 
ornamented  with  thorns  and  dead  leaves.  This  indispensable 
garment  was  secured  to  his  person  by  a  couple  of  strands  of 
tow  by  way  of  braces,  and  a  shirt  of  sacking  (originally  of 
the  same  pattern  as  his  grandsire's  trousers,  but  thickened  by 
raw-edged  patches)  left  a  sunburned  chest  exposed  to  view. 
In  the  matter  of  simplicity  Mouche's  clothes  marked  a  distinct 
advance  on  old  Fourchon's  costume. 

"  What  good,  simple  souls  they  are  out  here !  "  said  Blondet 
to  himself.  "  Round  about  Paris  the  work-people  would  cut 
up  rough  if  a  swell  came  and  spoiled  sport."  And  as  he  had 
never  set  eyes  on  an  otter,  not  even  in  the  museum,  he  was 
quite  delighted  with  this  episode  in  his  walk. 

"Come,  now,"  he  began,  feeling  touched,  for  the  old  man 
was  going  away  without  asking  for  anything,  "  you  say  that 
you  are  an  expert  otter-hunter.  If  you  are  sure  that  the 
otter  is  there " 

Mouche,  on  the  opposite  bank,  pointed  to  the  air-bubbles 
rising  to  the  surface  of  the  Avonne,  to  die  away  in  eddies  in 
the  middle  of  the  pool. 


32  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"Her  has  gone  back  again,"  said  old  Fourchon  ;  "her 
has  been  to  draw  a  breath  of  air,  the  slut  !  It  is  her  as  has 
made  that  fuss  there.  How  do  her  manage  to  breathe  under 
water?  But  the  thing's  so  cunning,  it  laughs  at  science." 

"  Very  well,"  said  Blondet,  deciding  that  the  last  pleasantry 
was  a  current  bucolic  witticism  and  no  product  of  the  brain 
of  the  individual  before  him  ;  "  stop  and  catch  the  otter." 

"And  how  about  our  day's  work,  mine  and  Mouche's  ?  " 

"  What  is  a  day's  work  ?  " 

"  For  the  two  of  us,  me  and  my  apprentice  ?  Five 

francs "  said  the  old  man,  looking  Blondet  in  the  eyes 

with  a  hesitation  which  plainly  said  that  this  was  a  prodigious 
overstatement. 

The  journalist  took  some  coins  from  his  pocket,  saying, 
"  Here  are  ten  francs  for  you,  and  you  shall  have  at  least  as 
much  again  for  the  otter." 

"  Her' 11  be  cheap  to  you  at  that,  if  her  has  white  dots  on  her 
back,  for  the  sub-perfect  told  me  that  our  museum  has  only  one 
of  that  sort.  And  he  knows  a  good  deal,  all  the  same,  does 
our  sub-perfect,  he  is  no  fool.  If  I  goes  after  otters,  Master 
des  Lupeaulx  is  after  Master  Gaubertin's  daughter,  who  has  a 
fine  white  dot  (portion)  on  her  back.  Stay,  mister,  no  offense 
to  you,  but  you  go  and  beat  up  the  water  by  that  stone  yonder 
in  the  Avonne.  When  we  have  driven  out  the  otter,  her  will 
come  down  with  the  stream,  for  that  is  a  trick  the  animals  have ; 
them'll  go  up  stream  to  fish,  and  when  they  have  as  much  as 
they  can  carry,  they  come  down  to  their  burrow ;  they  know 
it's  easier  going  down  stream.  Didn't  I  tell  you  that  they 
are  cunning  !  If  I  had  learned  cunning  in  their  school,  I 
should  be  living  like  a  gentleman  at  this  day.  I  found  out 
too  late  that  you  have  to  get  up  early  in  the  morning  to  make 
headway  up  stream  and  get  the  first  chance  at  the  booty. 
There  was  a  spell  cast  over  me  when  I  was  born,  in  fact. 
Perhaps  the  three  of  us  together  will  be  too  clever  for  the 
otter," 


THE   PEASANTRY.  33 

"And  how,  old  necromancer?" 

"Lord,  sir,  we  peasants  are  such  stupid  animals  ourselves, 
that  we  come  at  last  to  understand  the  animals.  This  is  what 
we  will  do.  When  the  otter  turns  to  go  home,  we  will  scare 
her  here,  and  you  will  scare  her  there,  and  scared  of  both 
sides,  her' 11  make  a  dash  for  the  bank.  If  her  takes  to  the 
land,  it  is  all  over  with  her.  The  thing  can't  walk,  it's  made 
to  swim,  with  its  goose-feet.  Oh !  you  will  have  some  fun, 
for  it  is  a  regular  double  game — you  fish  and  hunt  at  the  same 
time.  The  general  at  the  Aigues,  where  you  are  staying, 
came  back  three  times  running,  he  took  such  a  fancy  to  the 
sport." 

Blondet  obediently  hopped  from  stone  to  stone  till  he 
reached  the  middle  of  the  Avonne,  where  he  took  his  stand, 
duly  provided  with  a  green  branch,  which  the  old  otter-hunter 
cut  for  .him,  ready  to  whip  the  stream  at  the  word  of  com- 
mand. 

"  Yes,  just  there,  mister,"  and  there  Blondet  remained,  un- 
conscious of  the  flight  of  time,  for  every  moment  the  old 
man's  gestures  kept  him  on  the  lookout  for  a  successful  issue, 
and  time  never  passes  more  quickly  than  when  every  faculty  is 
on  the  alert  in  expectation  of  energetic  action  to  succeed  to 
the  profound  silence  of  lying  in  wait. 

"Daddy  Fourchon,"  the  boy  whispered,  when  he  was 
alone  with  the  old  man,  "  there  really  be  an  otter  there " 

"  Do  you  see  her  ?  " 

"There  her  is!  " 

The  old  man  was  dumfounded.  He  distinctly  saw  the 
brown  skin  of  an  otter  swimming  along  under  the  water. 

"  Her  is  coming  along  tow'rds  me,"  said  the  little  fellow. 

"  Fetch  her  a  slap  on  the  head,  and  jump  in  and  hold  her 
down  at  the  bottom,  and  don't  let  her  go " 

Mouche  dived  into  the  Avonne  like  a  scared  frog. 

"  Quick,  quick !  mister,"  old  Fourchon  shouted,  as  he  like- 
wise jumped  into  the  Avonne  (leaving  his  sabots  on  the  bank). 
3 


34  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  Just  give  her  a  scare  !  There  !  look— her  is  swimming 
tow'rds  you  !  " 

The  old  man  splashed  along  through  the  water  to  Blondet, 
shouting  with  the  gravity  that  rustics  can  preserve  through  the 
keenest  sense  of  fun. 

"  Look,  do  you  see  her,  along  of  those  rocks  !  " 

Blondet,  purposely  placed  so  that  the  sun  shone  into  his 
eyes,  thrashed  the  water  in  all  good  faith. 

"  There  !  there  !  nearer  the  rocks  !  "  shouted  old  Fourchon, 
"  that  is  where  her  hole  is  to  your  left."  Carried  away  by 
vexation,  excited  by  the  long  suspense,  Blondet  took  an  im- 
promptu footpath,  slipping  off  the  stones  into  the  water. 

"  Hold  on !  hold  on !  mister,  you  have  got  her.  Oh, 
heaven  and  earth !  there  she  goes,  right  between  your  legs  ! 
Her  is  off!  Her  is  off !  "  cried  the  old  man  in  desperation. 
And  like  one  possessed  with  the  fury  of  the  chase,  he  splashed 
across  till  he  confronted  Blondet. 

" 'Twas  your  doing  that  we  lost  her,"  old  Fourchon  con- 
tinued ;  Blondet  held  out  a  hand,  and  he  emerged  from  the 
water  like  a  Triton — a  vanquished  Triton.  "Her  is  there 
under  the  rock,  the  wench  !  Her  dropped  her  fish,"  he 
added,  pointing  to  something  floating  down  the  stream  some 
distance  away.  "  Anyhow  we  shall  have  the  tench,  for  a 
tench  it  is " 

As  he  spoke  they  saw  a  liveried  servant  on  horseback,  gal- 
loping along  the  Conches  road,  holding  a  second  horse  by  the 
bridle. 

"  There !  it  looks  as  if  the  servants  from  the  castle  were 
looking  for  you,"  he  went  on.  "If  you  want  to  get  back 
across  the  river,  I  will  lend  you  a  hand.  Oh  !  I  would  as 
soon  have  a  soaking  as  not,  it  saves  you  the  trouble  of  wash- 
ing your  things." 

"And  how  about  catching  cold?  "  asked  Blondet. 

"Ah,  indeed!  Don't  you  see  that  the  sun  has  browned 
our  shanks  like  an  old  pensioner's  tobacco  pipe.  Lean  on 


THE   PEASANTRY.  35 

me,  mister.  You  are  from  Paris,  you  don't  know  how  to  get 
foothold  on  our  rocks,  for  so  many  things  as  you  know.  If 
you  stop  here  a  while,  you  will  learn  a  sight  of  things  out  of 
the  book  of  nature,  you  that  write  the  news  in  the  papers." 

Blondet,  arrived  on  the  opposite  bank,  encountered  the 
footman  Charles. 

"Ah,  sir,"  cried  the  man,  "you  cannot  imagine  madame's 
anxiety  when  she  heard  that  you  had  gone  out  through  the 
Conches  gate.  She  thinks  that  you  are  drowned.  Three 
times  they  rang  the  second  bell  for  breakfast  with  might  and 
main,  after  shouting  all  over  the  park,  and  Monsieur  le  Cure 
is  still  looking  for  you  there." 

"Why,  what  time  is  it,  Charles?" 

"  A  quarter  to  twelve !  " 

"  Help  me  to  mount " 

"  Perhaps  monsieur  has  been  helping  to  hunt  old  Four- 
chon's  otter,"  said  the  man,  as  he  noticed  the  water  dripping 
from  Blondet's  boots  and  trousers. 

That  question  opened  the  journalist's  eyes. 

"  Not  a  word  about  it,  Charles,  and  I  will  bear  you  in 
mind,"  cried  he. 

"Oh,  Lord  love  you,  sir,  Monsieur  le  Comte  himself  was 
taken  in  with  old  Fourchon's  otter.  As  soon  as  any  one  new 
to  the  place  comes  to  the  Aigues,  old  Fourchon  is  on  the 
lookout  for  him ;  and  if  the  town  gentleman  goes  to  see  the 
springs  of  the  Avonne,  the  old  boy  sells  him  his  otter.  He 
keeps  it  up  so  well,  that  the  comte  went  back  three  times 
and  paid  him  six  days'  wages  while  they  sat  and  watched  the 
water  flow." 

"And  I  used  to  think  that  I  had  seen  the  greatest  come- 
dians of  the  day  in  Potier  and  the  younger  Baptiste,"  said 
Blondet  to  himself,  "and  what  are  they  compared  with  this 
beggar?" 

"Oh!  he  is  quite  up  to  that  game,  is  old  Fourchon," 
Charles  pursued.  "And  he  has  another  string  to  his  bow, 


36  THE  PEASANTRY. 

for  he  had  himself  put  down  on  the  register  as  a  rope-maker. 
He  has  his  rope-walk  along  the  wall  outside  the  Blangy  gate. 
If  you  take  it  into  your  head  to  meddle  with  his  cord,  he 
comes  round  you  so  cleverly  that  you  begin  to  want  to  turn 
the  wheel  and  make  a  bit  of  rope  yourself,  and  then  he  asks 
you  for  a  prentice's  premium.  Madame  was  caught  that  way 
and  gave  him  twenty  francs.  He  is  the  king  of  sly-boots," 
said  Charles,  picking  his  words. 

The  man's  gossip  gave  Blondet  some  opportunity  of  reflect- 
ing upon  the  profound  astuteness  of  the  peasantry;  he  also 
recalled  much  that  had  been  said  by  his  father  the  judge  at 
Alencon.  Then  as  all  the  malice  lurking  beneath  old  Four- 
chon's  simplicity  came  up  in  his  mind,  Charles'  confidences 
put  those  remarks  in  a  new  light ;  and  he  confessed  to  him- 
self that  he  had  been  gulled  by  the  old  Burgundian  beggar. 

"  You  would  not  believe,  sir,  how  wide  awake  you  have  to 
be  in  the  country,  and  here  of  all  places,  for  the  general  is  not 
very  popular ' ' 

"Why  so?" 

"  Lord,  I  do  not  know,"  said  Charles,  with  the  stupid  look 
a  servant  can  assume  to  screen  a  refusal  to  his  betters,  a  look 
which  gave  Blondet  plenty  of  food  for  reflection. 

"  So  here  you  are,  runaway  !  "  said  the  general,  coming  out 
upon  the  steps  at  the  sound  of  horse-hoofs.  "Here  he  is! 
Set  your  mind  at  rest,"  he  called  to  his  wife,  hearing  her  pat- 
tering footsteps.  "  Now  we  are  all  here  but  the  Abbe  Bros- 
sette.  Go  and  look  for  him,  Charles,"  he  said,  turning  to  the 
servant. 

III. 

THE   TAVERN. 

The  Blangy  gate  dated  from  Bouret's  time.  It  consisted  of 
two  pilasters  with  "rustic"  bossages,  each  surmounted  by  a 
rampant  greyhound  holding  an  escutcheon  between  its  fore- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  37 

paws.  The  steward's  house  was  so  close  to  the  gate  that  the 
great  financier  had  no  occasion  to  build  another  for  a  lodge- 
keeper.  An  imposing  iron  grating,  of  the  same  style  as  those 
made  in  Buffon's  time  for  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  opened  out 
upon  the  extreme  end  of  the  paved  way  which  led  to  the  cross- 
road. Formerly  the  Aigues  had  combined  with  the  House  of 
Soulanges  to  maintain  this  local  road  which  connected  Con- 
ches and  Cerneux  and  Blangy  and  Soulanges  with  Ville-aux- 
Fayes,  as  by  a  flowery  chain,  so  many  are  the  little  houses, 
covered  with  roses  and  honeysuckle  and  climbing  plants,  that 
are  dotted  about  among  the  hedge-inclosed  domains  along  its 
course. 

Just  outside,  along  a  trim  wall,  stood  a  rotten  post,  a  ram- 
shackle wheel  and  heckle-boards,  the  entire  "plant"  of  a 
village  rope-maker.  Farther,  the  wall  gave  place  to  a  ha-ha 
fence,  so  that  the  castle  commanded  a  view  of  the  valley  as 
far  as  Soulanges,  and  even  farther. 

About  half-past  twelve  o'clock,  while  Blondet  was  taking 
his  place  at  table  opposite  the  Abbe  Brossette,  and  receiving 
a  flattering  scolding  from  the  countess,  old  Fourchon  and 
Mouche  arrived  at  their  rope-walk.  Under  pretext  of  making 
rope,  old  Fourchon  could  keep  an  eye  upon  the  house  and 
spy  the  movements  of  the  gentry.  Indeed,  a  shutter  could 
not  move,  no  two  persons  could  stroll  away  together,  no  trifling 
incident  could  take  place  at  the  castle  but  the  old  man  knew 
of  it.  He  had  only  taken  up  his  position  there  within  the  last 
three  years,  and  neither  keepers,  nor  servants,  nor  the  family 
had  noticed  a  circumstance  so  apparently  insignificant. 

"  Go  round  to  the  Avonne  gate  while  I  put  up  our  tackle," 
said  old  Fourchon  ;  "  and  when  you  have  chattered  about 
this,  they  will  come  to  look  for  me  at  the  Grand-I-Vert.  I 
will  have  a  drop  of  something  there;  it  is  thirsty  work  step- 
ping in  the  water  like  that.  If  you  do  just  as  I  have  been 
telling  you,  you  will  get  a  good  breakfast  out  of  them  ;  try  to 
speak  with  the  countess,  and  go  on  about  me,  so  that  they  may 


38  THE  PEASANTRY. 

take  it  into  their  heads  to  give  me  a  sermon,  eh  !  There  will 
be  a  glass  or  two  of  good  wine  to  tipple  down." 

With  these  final  instructions,  which,  to  judge  from  Mouche's 
sly  looks,  were  almost  superfluous,  the  old  rope-maker  tucked 
his  otter  under  his  arm  and  disappeared  down  the  road. 

Half-way  between  this  picturesque  gateway  and  the  village. 
at  the  time  of  Emile  Blondet's  visit,  stood  a  house  such  as 
may  be  seen  anywhere  in  France  in  districts  where  stone  is 
scarce.  Brickbats  collected  from  all  sources,  and  great  flints 
roughly  set  in  stiff  clay,  made  fairly  solid  walls,  though  the 
weather  had  eaten  them  away.  Stout  tree  boughs  upheld  a 
roof  thatched  with  straw  and  rushes ;  the  clumsy  shutters  and 
the  door,  like  everything  else  about  the  hovel,  were  either 
lucky  "finds  "  or  had  been  extorted  by  hard  begging. 

The  peasant  brings  to  the  making  of  his  dwelling  the  same 
instinct  that  a  wild  creature  displays  in  the  making  of  its  nest 
or  burrow;  this  instinct  shone  conspicuously  in  the  arrange- 
ments of  the  whole  cabin.  To  begin  with,  the  door  and 
window  were  on  the  north  side,  and  the  house,  situated  on  a 
little  knoll  in  the  stoniest  part  of  a  vineyard,  should  have 
been  healthy  enough.  It  was  reached  by  three  steps,  ingeni- 
ously contrived  out  of  stakes  and  planks,  and  filled  in  with  small 
stones.  The  rain-water  very  soon  flowed  away ;  and  as  in 
Burgundy  rain  seldom  comes  from  the  north,  the  foundations, 
flimsy  though  they  were,  did  not  rot  with  the  damp.  At  the 
foot  of  the  steps  some  rustic  palings  extended  along  the  foot- 
path, until  they  were  lost  to  sight  in  a  hedge  of  hawthorn  and 
wildbriar.  A  collection  of  rough  benches  and  rickety  tables 
invited  passers-by  to  seat  themselves  in  the  shade  of  the  trel- 
lised  vine  which  covered  the  whole  space  between  the  hut  and 
the  road.  In  the  inclosed  garden,  on  the  top  of  the  knoll, 
grew  roses,  and  pinks,  and  violets,  and  all  the  flowers  which 
cost  nothing ;  honeysuckle  and  jessamine  trails  clung  about  a 
roof  heavy  already  with  moss,  in  spite  of  its  recent  date. 

The  owner  had  set  up  a  "lean-to"  cowshed  against  the 


THE  PEASANTRY.  39 

right  wall  of  the  house.  It  was  a  crazy  wooden  erection,  with 
a  sort  of  yard  of  beaten  earth  in  front  of  it,  where  a  huge  dung- 
hill stood  conspicuous  in  one  corner.  An  outhouse  at  the 
back,  a  thatched  roof,  supported  by  two  tree-trunks,  did  duty 
as  a  shed  for  vine-dressers'  tools,  empty  casks,  and  heaps  of 
faggots  piled  about  the  projecting  boss  of  the  oven,  which  in 
peasants'  cottages  almost  invariably  opens  just  under  the 
chimney-shelf. 

About  an  acre  of  land  belonged  to  the  house,  a  croft  in- 
closed with  a  privet  hedge,  full  of  vines,  tended  as  a  peasant's 
vines  are  tended,  so  well  manured,  layered,  and  trenched, 
that  they  came  into  leaf  earlier  than  any  others  for  three 
leagues  around.  The  slender  tops  of  a  few  fruit-trees,  al- 
monds, and  plums,  and  apricots,  appeared  here  and  there 
above  the  hedge.  Potatoes  or  beans  were  usually  growing 
among  the  vine-stems.  Another  small  wedge-shaped  bit  of 
land  behind  the  yard  and  in  the  direction  of  tfye  village  was 
low  and  damp  enough  to  grow  the  cabbages  and  onions  dear 
to  the  laborer.  A  latticed  gate  divided  it  off  from  the  yard, 
through  which  the  cows  passed,  trampling  and  manuring  the 
earth. 

Inside  the  house,  the  two  rooms  on  the  first  floor  opened 
on  to  the  vineyard ;  on  that  side  of  it,  a  rough  wooden  stair- 
case ran  up  the  outer  wall  under  the  thatch  to  a  garret  lighted 
by  a  round  window  under  the  roof.  Beneath  these  rustic 
steps  a  cellar,  built  of  Burgundian  bricks,  contained  a  few 
hogsheads  of  wine. 

A  peasant's  batterie  de  cuisine  (tin  cooking  utensils)  usually 
consists  of  a  couple  of  cooking-pots,  a  frying-pan,  and  an 
iron  kettle ;  but  in  this  cottage,  by  way  of  exception  to  the 
rule,  there  were  two  huge  saucepans  hanging  up  under  the 
mantel-shelf  above  a  small  portable  stove.  But,  in  spite  of 
this  sign  of  comfort,  the  furniture  generally  was  in  keeping 
with  the  outside  of  the  house.  An  earthen  jar  held  the  water; 
pewter  spoons  and  wooden  ladles  did  duty  for  silver-plate; 


40  THE  PEASANTRY. 

and  the  crockery- ware  was  cracked,  riveted,  brown  without 
and  white  within.  A  few  deal  chairs  stood  about  a  solid 
table,  and  the  floor  was  of  beaten  earth.  The  walls  were 
whitewashed  once  in  five  years,  so  were  the  slender  rafters  of 
the  ceiling,  where  bacon  and  ropes  of  onions,  and  bunches  of 
candles,  hung  among  the  bags  in  which  the  peasant  keeps  his 
seeds.  Beside  the  bread-hutch  stood  an  old  cupboard  of 
black  walnut-wood,  containing  such  linen  as  the  inmates  of 
the  cabin  possessed— the  spare  garments  and  the  Sunday 
clothes  of  the  whole  family. 

An  antiquated  gun  shone  on  the  wall  above  the  mantel- 
shelf, a  poacher's  weapon,  for  which  you  would  not  have  given 
five  francs.     The  gun-stock  was  almost  charred,  nor  was  there 
any  appearance  about  the  barrel,  which  looked  as  if  it  was 
never  cleaned.     Perhaps  you  may  think  that  as  the  gate  stood 
open  day  and  night,  and  the  cabin-door  boasted  no  fastening 
but  a  latch,  nothing  more  efficient  in  the  way  of  firearms  was 
needed,  and  ask  what  earthly  use  such  a  weapon  might  be. 
But,  in  the  first  place,  rough  though  the  woodwork  was,  the 
barrel  had  been  carefully  selected  ;  it  had  belonged  to  a  gun 
of  price,  once  given,  no  doubt,  to  some  gamekeeper.     And 
the  owner  of  the  gun  never  missed  a  shot ;  between  him  and 
his  weapon  there  was  the  intimate  understanding  that  exists 
between  the  craftsman  and  his  tool.     If  the  muzzle  must  be 
pointed  a  millimetre  above  or  below  the  mark,  the  poacher 
knows  and  obeys  the  rule  accurately,  and  is  never  out  in  his 
reckoning.     And  an  officer  of  artillery  would  see  that  all  the 
essentials  were  in   good  working  order,  nor  more  nor  less. 
Into  everything  that  the  peasant  appropriates  to  his  uses  he 
puts  the  exact  amount  of  energy  required  to  attain  the  desired 
end — the  necessary  labor,  and  nothing  more.     He  has  not  the 
least  idea  of  finish,  but  he  is  a  perfect  judge  of  the  necessities 
in  everything ;    he  knows   all   the  degrees  in   the   scale  of 
energy ;  and  if  he  works  for  a  master,  knows  exactly  how  to 
do  the  least  possible  amount  of  work  for  the  utmost  possible 


THE  PEASANTRY.  41 

pay.     Finally,  this  very  gun  played  an  important  part  in  the 
family  life,  as  shall  presently  be  shown. 

Have  you  realized  all  the  countless  details  about  this  hovel, 
five  hundred  paces  from  the  picturesque  park  gates  ?  Can 
you  picture  it  squatting  there  like  a  beggar  by  a  palace  wall  ? 
Well,  then,  beneath  all  its  idyllic  rusticity,  the  velvet  mosses 
of  its  roof,  the  cackling  hens,  the  wallowing  pig,  the  lowing 
heifer,  and  every  sight  and  sound  there  lies  an  ugly  signifi- 
cance. 

A  high  pole  was  set  up  by  the  front  gate,  to  exhibit  to 
public  view  a  bush  made  up  of  three  withered  branches  of 
pine  and  oak,  tied  in  a  bunch  by  a  bit  of  rag.  Above  the 
door  stood  a  signboard  about  two  feet  square,  on  which  an 
itinerant  artist  had  painted  (for  a  breakfast)  a  huge  green 
letter  I  on  a  white  field — a  pun  in  ten  letters  for  those  who 
could  read — the  Grand- 1- Vert  (Jiiver)*  A  vulgar  gaudy- 
colored  advertisement  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  door  an- 
nounced "  Good  March  Ale,"  a  crude  representation  of  a 
woman  with  an  exaggeratedly  low-necked  dress,  and  a  hussar, 
in  uniform,  strutting  on  either  side  of  a  foaming  pint  pot. 
In  spite  of  the  scent  of  flowers  and  the  country  air,  a  stale 
reek  of  wine  and  eatables  always  clung  about  the  cabin,  the 
same  odor  that  lies  in  wait  for  you  as  you  pass  by  some  pot- 
house in  a  low  quarter  of  Paris. 

The  place  you  know.  Now,  behold  its  inmates.  Their 
history  contains  more  than  one  lesson  for  the  philanthropist. 

The  owner  of  the  Grand-I-Vert,  one  Francois  Tonsard,  is 
not  unworthy  of  the  attention  of  philosophers,  in  that  he  con- 
trived to  solve  the  problem  of  how  to  lead  a  life  of  combined 
industry  and  idleness,  in  such  a  way  that  his  idleness  was 
highly  profitable  to  himself,  while  no  one  was  a  penny  the 
better  for  his  industry. 

He  was  a  jack-of-all-trades.  He  could  dig,  but  only  on  his 
own  land.  He  could  also  do  hedging  and  ditching,  bark 

*  The  Great  Green  I.     Pronounced  :  grand  e  ver  (hiver)  winter. 


42  THE  PEASANTRY. 

trees  or  fell  them,  for  other  people,  for  in  all  these  occupations 
the  master  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  man.  Tonsard  owed  his  bit 
of  land  to  Mile.  Laguerre's  generosity.  While  a  mere  lad  he 
did  a  day's  work  now  and  again  for  the  gardener  at  the  castle, 
for  he  had  not  his  match  at  clipping  trees  in  garden  alleys, 
and  trimmed  hornbeams,  and  thorn-trees,  and  horse-chestnuts 
to  admiration.  His  name  Tonsard — literally,  "  the  clipper  " — 
is  a  sufficient  indication  of  an  aptitude  descended  from  father 
to  son,  and  in  most  country-places  such  monopolies  are  secured 
and  maintained  with  as  much  cunning  as  ever  city  merchants 
use  to  the  same  end. 

One  day  Mile.  Laguerre,  strolling  in  her  garden,  overheard 
Tonsard,  a  fine  strapping  young  fellow,  saying,  "All  I  want 
to  live,  and  live  happily  too,  is  an  acre  of  land  !  "  Where- 
upon the  good-natured  creature,  accustomed  to  make  others 
happy,  bestowed  on  Tonsard  that  bit  of  vineyard  near  the 
Blangy  gate  in  return  for  a  hundred  days'  work  (a  piece  of 
delicacy  scantily  appreciated),  and  allowed  him  to  take  up 
his  quarters  at  the  Aigues,  where  he  lived  among  the  servants, 
who  thought  him  the  best  of  good  fellows  in  Burgundy. 

"Poor  Tonsard"  (as  everybody  called  him)  did  about 
thirty  days'  work  out  of  the  hundred,  the  rest  of  the  time  he 
spent  in  laughing  and  flirting  with  the  maids  at  the  house, 
and  more  particularly  with  Mile.  Cochet,  madame's  own 
woman,  though  she  was  as  ugly  as  a  charming  actress'  maid 
is  sure  to  be.  A  laugh,  with  Mile.  Cochet,  was  something  so 
significant,  that  Soudry  (the  happy  police  sergeant  of  Blon- 
det's  letter)  still  gave  Tonsard  black  looks  after  five-and- 
twenty  years.  The  walnut-wood  press  and  the  four-post 
bedstead  with  curtains,  which  adorned  the  bedroom  at  the 
Grand-I-Vert,  were,  no  doubt,  the  fruit  of  one  of  these  titter- 
ings. 

Once  in  possession  of  his  bit  of  land,  Tonsard  replied  to 
the  first  person  who  remarked  that  "  madame  had  given  it  to 
him." 


THE  PEASANTRY.  43 

"By  George,  it's  mine!  honestly  bought  and  honestly 
paid  for.  Do  the  bourgeois  ever  give  you  anything  for 
nothing?  And  a  hundred  days'  work  is  nothing,  is  it  ?  That 
has  cost  me  three  hundred  francs  as  it  is,  and  the  soil  is  all 
stones !  " 

The  talk  never  went  beyond  the  circle  of  the  peasantry. 

Tonsard  next  built  the  house  himself.  Finding  the  mate- 
rials here  and  there,  asking  this  one  and  that  to  do  a  hand's 
turn  for  him,  pilfering  odds  and  ends  from  the  castle,  or 
asking,  and  invariably  having  for  what  he  asked.  A  rickety 
gateway  pulled  down  to  be  removed  found  its  way  to  his  cow- 
shed. The  window  came  from  an  old  greenhouse.  The  hut, 
to  prove  so  fatal  to  the  castle,  was  built  up  of  material  from 
the  castle. 

Tonsard  escaped  military  service,  thanks  to  Gaubertin, 
Mile.  Laguerre's  steward.  Gaubertin's  father  was  the  public 
prosecutor  of  the  department,  and  Gaubertin  could  refuse 
Mile.  Cochet  nothing.  When  the  house  was  finished  and  the 
vines  in  full  bearing,  Tonsard  took  unto  himself  a  wife.  A 
bachelor  of  three-and-twenty  on  a  friendly  footing  at  the 
Aigues,  the  good-for-nothing  to  whom  madame  had  given  an 
acre  of  land  had  every  appearance  of  being  a  hard  worker, 
and  he  had  the  wit  to  make  the  most  of  his  negative  virtues. 
His  wife  was  the  daughter  of  a  tenant  on  the  Ronquerolles 
estate  on  the  other  side  of  the  forest  of  the  Aigues. 

This  farmer  farmed  half  a  farm,  which  was  going  to  wreck 
and  ruin  in  his  hands  for  want  of  a  housewife.  The  incon- 
solable widower  had  tried  to  drown  his  cares  in  drink,  in  the 
English  fashion  ;  but  time  went  on,  he  thought  no  more  upon 
his  loss,  and  at  last  found  himself  wedded  to  the  wine-cask,  in 
the  jocular  village  phrase.  Then  in  no  long  time  the  father- 
in-law  ceased  to  be  a  farmer,  and  became  a  laborer ;  an  idle, 
mischief-making,  quarrelsome  sot,  sticking  at  nothing,  like 
most  men  of  his  class  who  fall  from  a  comparatively  comfort- 
able position  into  poverty.  He  could  read  and  write,  his  edu- 


44  THE  PEASANTRY. 

cation  and  practical  knowledge  raised  him  above  the  level  of 
the  ordinary  laborer,  though  his  bad  habits  dragged  him  down 
to  the  level  of  the  tramp ;  and,  as  we  have  seen,  he  had  just 
been  a  match  for  one  of  the  cleverest  men  in  Paris  in  a 
Bucolic  overlooked  by  Virgil. 

At  first  they  made  old  Fourchon  the  village  schoolmaster 
at  Blangy,  but  he  lost  his  place,  partly  by  misconduct,  partly 
by  his  peculiar  views  of  primary  education.  His  pupils  made 
more  progress  in  the  art  of  making  paper  boats  and  chickens 
out  of  the  pages  of  their  ABC  books  than  in  reading ;  and 
his  homilies  on  pilfering  orchards  were  strangely  like  lessons 
on  the  best  manner  of  scaling  walls.  They  still  quote  one 
of  his  sayings  at  Soulanges,  an  answer  given  to  some  urchin 
who  came  late  with  the  excuse,  "  Lord,  sir,  I  had  to  take  our 
'orse  to  the  water." 

"florse  we  say,  ye  dunder'ead." 

From  a  schoolmaster  he  became  postman.  This  employ- 
ment, which  is  as  good  as  a  pension  to  many  an  old  soldier, 
got  Daddy  Fourchon  into  trouble  every  day  of  his  life. 
Sometimes  he  left  the  letters  in  a  tavern,  sometimes  he  forgot 
to  deliver  them,  sometimes  he  kept  them  in  his  pocket. 
When  his  wits  were  flustered  with  liquor,  he  would  leave  the 
correspondence  of  one  commune  in  another;  when  he  was 
sober  he  read  the  letters.  He  was  promptly  dismissed. 
Having  nothing  to  hope  in  the  way  of  a  Government  appoint- 
ment, Daddy  Fourchon  at  length  turned  his  attention  to 
manufacture.  The  very  poorest  do  something  in  country 
places,  and  one  and  all,  if  they  do  not  make  an  honest  liveli- 
hood, make  a  pretense  of  earning  it. 

At  the  age  of  sixty-eight  Fourchon  took  to  rope-making  on 
a  small  scale,  that  being  a  business  in  which  the  least  possible 
amount  of  capital  is  needed.  The  first  wall  you  find  (as  has 
been  seen)  is  a  sufficient  workshop,  ten  francs  will  more  than 
pay  for  your  machinery  ;  and  the  apprentice,  like  his  master, 
sleeps  in  a  barn,  and  lives  on  what  he  can  pick  up.  So  shall 


THE  PEASANTRY.  45 

you  evade  the  rapacity  of  the  law  which  vexes  the  poor  with 
door  and  window  tax.  The  raw  material  you  borrow,  and 
return  a  manufactured  article. 

But  Daddy  Fourchon,  and  Mouche  his  apprentice  (the 
natural  son  of  one  of  his  natural  daughters),  had  another 
resource,  in  fact,  their  mainstay  and  support,  in  otter-hunting, 
to  say  nothing  of  breakfasts  and  dinners  given  to  the  pair  by 
illiterate  folk  who  availed  themselves  of  Daddy  Fourchon's 
talents  when  a  letter  must  be  written  or  a  bill  made  out. 
Finally,  the  old  man  could  play  the  clarionet,  and  in  the 
company  of  a  crony,  the  fiddler  of  Soulanges,  Vermichel  by 
name,  figured  at  village  weddings  and  great  balls  at  the  Tivoli 
at  Soulanges. 

Vermichel's  real  name  was  Michel  Vert ;  but  the  trans- 
position was  so  much  in  use,  that  Brunei,  clerk  of  the  justice 
of  the  peace  at  Soulanges,  described  him  in  all  documents  as 
"  Michel- Jean-Jerome  Vert,  otherwise  Vermichel,  witness." 

Daddy  Fourchon  had  been  of  use  in  past  times  to  Ver- 
michel, a  fiddler  held  in  high  esteem  by  the  old  Burgundian 
regiment ;  and  Vermichel  out  of  gratitude  for  those  services 
had  procured  for  his  friend  the  post  of  practitioner  (the 
privilege  of  appearing  before  the  justice  of  the  peace  in  the 
interests  of  this  or  that  person),  for  which  any  man  who  can 
sign  his  name  is  eligible  in  out-of-the-way  places.  So  Daddy 
Fourchon's  signature  was  appended  to  any  judicial  documents 
drawn  up  by  the  Sieur  Brunet  in  the  communes  of  Cerneux, 
Conches,  and  Blangy ;  and  the  names  of  Vermichel  and 
Fourchon,  bound  together  by  a  friendship  cemented  by  twenty 
years  of  hobnobbing,  seemed  almost  like  the  style  of  a  firm. 

Mouche  and  Fourchon,  united  as  closely  each  to  each  by 
malpractices  as  Mentor  and  Telemachus  of  old  by  virtues, 
traveled  like  their  antitypes  in  search  of  bread ;  panis  angel- 
orum  (angels'  bread  :  charity),  the  only  words  of  Latin  that 
linger  yet  in  the  memories  of  gray-headed  villagers.  The 
pair  negotiated  the  scraps  at  Tonsard's  tavern,  or  at  the  great 


46  THE  PEASANTRY. 

houses  roundabout;  for  between  them  in  their  busiest  and 
most  prosperous  years  their  achievement  scarcely  exceeded  an 
average  of  some  seven  hundred  yards  of  rope.  In  the  first 
place,  no  tradesman  for  sixty  miles  round  would  have  trusted 
either  of  them  with  a  hank  of  tow,  for  this  venerable  person 
(anticipating  the  miracles  of  modern  science)  knew  but  too 
well  how  to  transform  the  hemp  into  the  divine  juice  of  the 
grape.  And,  in  the  second  place,  beside  being  private 
secretary  to  three  communes,  Fourchon  appeared  for  plaintiff 
or  defendant  before  the  justice  of  the  peace,  and  performed 
at  merrymakings  upon  the  clarionet — his  public  duties  were 
the  ruin  of  his  trade,  he  said. 

So  Tonsard's  hopes,  so  fondly  cherished,  were  nipped  in 
the  bud.  Those  comfortable  additions  to  his  property  would 
never  be  his,  and  the  ordinary  luck  of  life  confronted  a  lazy 
son-in-law  with  another  do-nothing  in  the  shape  of  his  wife's 
father.  And  things  were  bound  to  do  much  the  worse  in  that 
La  Tonsard,  a  tall  and  shapely  woman  with  a  kind  of  broad- 
blown  comeliness,  showed  no  sort  of  taste  for  field  work. 
Tonsard  bore  his  wife  a  grudge  for  her  father's  bankruptcy, 
and  treated  her  badly,  taking  his  revenge  after  the  fashion  fa- 
miliar to  a  class  that  sees  the  effects,  but  seldom  traces  the  cause. 

The  wife,  finding  her  bondage  hard,  sought  alleviations. 
She  took  advantage  of  Tonsard's  vices  to  govern  him.  He 
was  an  ease-loving  glutton,  so  she  encouraged  him  in  idleness 
and  gluttony.  She  managed  to  secure  for  him  the  good-will 
of  the  servants  at  the  castle,  and  he,  satisfied  with  the  results, 
did  not  grumble  at  the  means.  He  troubled  himself  uncom- 
monly little  about  his  wife's  doings,  so  long  as  she  did  all  that 
he  required  of  her,  a  tacit  understanding  in  which  every  second 
married  couple  lives.  The  tavern  was  La  Tonsard's  next  inven- 
tion, and  her  first  customers  were  the  servants,  gamekeepers, 
and  stablemen  from  the  Aigues. 

Gaubertin,  Mile.  Laguerre's  agent,  was  one  of  La  belle  (the 
handsome)  Tonsard's  earliest  patrons ;  he  let  her  have  a  few 


THE  PEASANTRY.  47 

hogsheads  of  good  wine  to  attract  custom.  The  effect  of 
these  presents,  periodically  renewed  so  long  as  Gaubertin  re- 
mained a  bachelor,  together  with  the  fame  of  the  not  too  ob- 
durate beauty  among  the  Don  Juans  of  the  valley,  brought 
custom  to  the  house.  LaTonsard,  being  fond  of  good  eating, 
became  an  excellent  cook ;  and  though  she  exercised  her 
talents  only  on  dishes  well  known  in  the  country,  such  as 
jugged  hare,  game-sauce,  sea-pie,  and  omelettes,  she  was  sup- 
posed to  understand  to  admiration  the  art  of  cooking  a  meal 
served  at  a  table's  end,  and  so  prodigiously  overseasoned  that 
it  induces  thirst.  In  these  ways  she  managed  Tonsard  ;  she 
gave  him  a  downward  push,  and  he  asked  nothing  better  than 
to  abandon  himself  and  roll  luxuriously  down  hill. 

The  rogue  became  a  confirmed  poacher ;  he  had  nothing  to 
fear.  His  wife's  relations  with  Gaubertin,  bailiffs,  and  keepers, 
and  the  relaxed  notions  of  property  of  the  Revolution,  assured 
him  of  complete  impunity.  As  soon  as  the  children  grew  big 
enough,  he  made  what  he  could  out  of  them,  and  was  no  more 
scrupulous  as  to  their  conduct  than  he  had  been  with  his 
wife's.  He  had  two  girls  and  two  boys.  Tonsard  lived,  like 
his  wife,  from  hand  to  mouth,  and  there  would  soon  have  been 
an  end  of  this  merry  life  of  his  if  he  had  not  laid  down  the  almost 
martial  law  that  every  one  in  his  house  must  contribute  to 
his  comfort,  in  which,  for  that  matter,  the  rest  of  them  shared. 
By  the  time  that  the  family  was  reared  at  the  expense  of  those 
from  whom  the  wife  knew  how  to  extort  presents,  this  is  a 
statement  of  the  finances  of  the  Grand-I-Vert. 

Tonsard's  old  mother  and  two  girls,  Catherine  and  Marie, 
were  always  picking  up  firewood.  Twice  a  day  they  would 
come  home  bending  under  the  weight  of  a  faggot  that  reached 
to  the  ankle  and  projected  a  couple  of  feet  above  their  heads. 
The  outside  of  the  faggot  was  made  of  dead  sticks ;  the  green 
wood  often  cut  from  young  saplings  was  hidden  away  inside  it.* 

*  It  is  permitted  to  gather  dead  branches  in  the  forests,  but  a  heavy 
penalty  attaches  to  cutting  live  wood. 


48  THE  PEASANTRY. 

In  the  fullest  sense  of  the  words,  Tonsard  took  all  his  winter 
fuel  from  the  forest  of  the  Aigues. 

The  father  and  both  boys  were  habitual  poachers.  From 
September  to  March  all  the  game  that  they  did  not  eat  at 
home  they  sold.  Hares  and  rabbits,  partridges,  thrushes,  and 
roebucks — they  took  them  all  to  Soulanges,  the  little  town 
where  Tonsard's  girls  took  milk  from  door  to  door  every 
morning  and  carried  back  the  news,  taken  in  exchange  for 
the  gossip  of  the  Aigues,  Cerneux,  and  Conches.  When 
their  season  was  over,  the  three  Tonsards  set  snares,  and,  if 
the  snares  were  too  successful,  La  Tonsard  made  pies  and  sold 
them  in  Ville-aux-Fayes.  In  harvest-time  the  whole  family — 
the  old  mother,  the  two  lads  (until  they  were  seventeen  years 
old),  the  two  girls,  old  Fourchon  and  Mouche,  seven  in  all 
of  the  Tonsard  clan — mustered  and  went  gleaning.  They 
would  pick  up  nearly  sixteen  bushels  a  day  among  them,  rye, 
barley,  wheat — anything  that  was  grist  for  the  mill. 

At  first  the  youngest  girl  took  the  two  cows  to  graze  by 
the  side  of  the  road  j  though  the  animals,  for  the  most  part, 
broke  through  the  hedges  into  the  fields  of  the  Aigues.  But 
as  the  rural  policeman  was  bound  to  take  cognizance  of  any- 
thing of  the  nature  of  flagrant  trespass,  the  slightest  mistake 
on  the  children's  part  was  always  punished  by  a  whipping  or 
by  the  loss  of  some  dainty,  till  they  had  become  singularly 
expert  at  hearing  sounds  of  an  approaching  enemy.  The 
keepers  at  the  Aigues  and  the  rural  policeman  scarcely  ever 
caught  them  in  the  act.  Moreover,  the  relations  between  the 
aforesaid  functionaries  and  the  Tonsards,  husband  and  wife, 
dimmed  their  eyes  to  these  things.  The  cows  soon  grew  obe- 
dient to  a  pull  at  the  long  cord  or  a  low  peculiar  call,  when 
they  found  that  as  soon  as  the  danger  was  past  they  might 
leave  the  roadside  to  finish  their  meal  in  the  neighboring  field. 

Tonsard's  old  mother,  growing  more  and  more  feeble,  suc- 
ceeded to  Mouche  when  old  Fourchon  took  him  away  under 
pretense  of  educating  the  boy  himself.  Marie  and  Catherine 


THE  PEASANTRY.  49 

made  hay  in  the  woods.  They  knew  the  patches  where  the 
grass  grew  sweet  and  delicate,  and  cut  and  turned  it,  and 
made  and  stacked  the  hay.  They  found  two-thirds  of  the 
winter  fodder  in  the  woods,  and  on  the  sunniest  winter  days 
took  the  cows  to  pasture  on  spots  well  known  to  them  where 
the  grass  was  green  even  in  cold  weather ;  for  in  certain  places 
round  about  the  Aigues,  as  in  Piedmont  and  Lombardy,  and 
every  hill  country,  there  are  bits  of  land  where  the  grass  grows 
in  winter.  Such  a  meadow,  called  a  marcita  in  Italy,  is  a 
very  valuable  property  there ;  but  in  France,  to  do  well,  there 
must  be  neither  too  much  frost  nor  too  much  snow.  The 
phenomenon  is  doubtless  due  partly  to  a  particular  aspect, 
partly  to  the  infiltration  of  the  water,  which  keeps  the  land 
at  a  higher  temperature. 

The  calves  brought  in  about  eighty  francs ;  and  the  milk, 
after  making  deductions  for  the  calves,  was  worth  about  a 
hundred  and  sixty  francs  in  money,  beside  the  supply  for  the 
house  and  the  dairy.  Tonsard  made  some  hundred  and  fifty 
crowns  by  doing  a  day's  work  for  one  and  another. 

The  tavern,  all  expenses  paid,  brought  in  about  three  hun- 
dred francs,  not  more,  for  merry-makings  are  essentially  short- 
lived, and  confined  to  certain  seasons.  La  Tonsard  and  her 
husband,  moreover,  usually  received  notice  of  a  "bean-feast" 
beforehand,  and  laid  in  the  small  quantity  of  meat  required 
and  the  necessary  provisions  from  the  town.  In  ordinary 
years  the  wine  from  the  Tonsards'  vineyard  fetched  twenty 
francs  the  cask  (the  cask  not  included)  ;  a  tavern-keeper  at 
Soulanges,  with  whom  Tonsard  had  dealings,  was  the  pur- 
chaser. In  abundant  years  the  vineyard  would  yield  twelve 
hogsheads,  but  the  average  produce  was  eight,  and  half  of 
these  Tonsard  kept  for  his  own  trade.  In  vine-growing  dis- 
tricts the  grape  gleanings  are  the  perquisite  of  the  vintagers, 
and  the  grape  gleaning  was  worth  three  casks  of  wine  annually 
to  the  Tonsard  family.  Sheltered  by  local  customs,  they 

showed  little  conscience  in  their  proceedings,  finding  their 

* 

I 


50  THE  PEASANTRY. 

way  into  vineyards  before  the  vintagers  had  done  their  work, 
just  as  they  hurried  into  the  cornfields  where  the  sheaves  stood 
waiting  to  be  carted  away.  So,  of  the  seven  or  eight  hogs- 
heads sold,  one-half  was  cribbed,  and  fetched  a  better  price. 
There  was  a  certain  amount  of  dead  loss  to  be  deducted  in 
the  budget,  for  Tonsard  and  his  wife  always  ate  of  the  best, 
and  drank  better  liquor  than  they  sold — supplied  to  them 
by  their  Soulanges  correspondent  in  exchange  for  their  own 
wines,  but,  altogether,  the  money  made  by  the  united  efforts 
of  the  family  amounted  to  nine  hundred  francs  or  thereabouts, 
for  they  fattened  a  couple  of  pigs  every  year — one  for  them- 
selves and  one  for  sale. 

As  time  went  on  the  tavern  became  the  favorite  haunt  of 
laborers  and  of  all  the  scamps  in  the  countryside ;  this  was 
due  partly  to  the  talents  of  the  Tonsard  family,  partly  to  the 
good-fellowship  existing  between  them  and  the  lowest  class  in 
the  valley.  Then  both  the  girls  were  remarkably  handsome, 
and  walked  in  the  ways  of  their  mother;  and,  finally,  the 
Grand-I-Vert  was  such  an  old-established  tavern  (dating,  as  it 
did,  from  1795)  that  it  became  an  institution.  From  Con- 
ches to  Ville-aux-Fayes  the  laborers  came  to  conclude  their 
bargains  there,  and  to  hear  the  news  gathered  by  the  Tonsard 
girls  and  Mouche  and  Fourchon,  retailed  by  Vermichel  or 
Brunei,  the  most  renowned  clerk  of  Soulanges,  who  came 
thither  to  find  his  practitioners. 

The  prices  of  hay  and  wine,  day-work  and  piece-work,  were 
fixed  there ;  questions  were  referred  to  Tonsard's  decision ; 
and  he,  a  sovereign  judge  in  such  matters,  gave  advice  and 
drank  with  the  rest.  Soulanges,  so  the  saying  ran,  was  simply 
a  fashionable  place  where  people  amused  themselves ;  Blangy 
was  the  place  for  business,  albeit  eclipsed  by  the  great  metrop- 
olis of  Ville-aux-Fayes,  which  in  twenty-five  years  had  come 
to  be  the  capital  of  the  magnificent  valley.  The  grain  and 
cattle  market  was  held  in  the  square  at  Blangy ;  the  ruling 
prices  there  served  as  a  guide  for  the  whole  district. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  51 

La  Tonsard,  being  a  keeper-at-home,  was  still  plump  and 
fair  and  young  looking,  when  women  who  work  in  the  fields 
fade  as  quickly  as  the  field  flowers,  and  are  old  crones  at 
thirty.  Moreover,  La  Tonsard  liked  to  look  her  best.  She 
was  only  neat  and  tidy,  but  in  a  village  tidiness  and  neatness 
mean  luxury.  The  girls  were  dressed  better  than  befitted 
their  poverty,  and  followed  their  mother's  example.  Their 
bodices  were  almost  elegant,  and  the  linen  beneath  was  finer 
than  any  that  the  richest  peasant's  wife  wears.  On  high  days 
and  holidays  they  appeared  in  fine  frocks,  how  paid  for  heaven 
only  knows.  The  servants  at  the  Aigues  let  them  have  their 
cast-off  clothing  at  a  price  within  their  reach ;  and  gowns 
which  had  swept  the  pavements  in  Paris,  altered  to  suit  Marie 
and  Catherine,  were  flaunted  at  the  sign  of  the  Grand-I-Vert. 
Neither  of  the  girls,  the  gypsies  of  the  valley,  received  a  far- 
thing from  their  parents,  who  merely  boarded  and  lodged 
them,  letting  them  lie  in  the  loft  at  night  on  filthy  mattresses, 
where  the  grandmother  and  two  brothers  slept  as  well,  all 
huddled  together  in  the  hay  like  brutes.  Neither  father  nor 
mother  thought  anything  of  this  promiscuity.  The  age  of 
iron  and  the  age  of  gold  have  more  resemblances  than  we 
think.  Nothing  arouses  vigilance  in  the  one,  everything 
arouses  it  in  the  other,  and  for  society  the  result  is  apparently 
the  same.  The  old  woman's  presence,  which  seemed  to  be 
less  a  safeguard  than  a  necessity,  only  made  matters  worse. 

The  Abbe  Brossette,  after  a  close  study  of  the  state  of 
things  among  his  parishioners,  made  this  profound  remark  to 
the  bishop — 

"  When  you  see  how  greatly  they  rely  on  their  poverty,  my 
lord,  you  can  guess  that  these  peasantry  are  in  terror  of  losing 
their  great  excuse  for  their  dissolute  lives." 

Everybody  was  aware  how  little  the  Tonsard  family  knew 
of  scruples  or  principles,  but  nobody  found  any  fault  with  their 
way  of  life. 

At  the  outset  of  this  scene  it  must  be  explained,  once  for 


52  THE  PEASANTRY. 

all,  that  the  peasant's  code  is  not  the  bourgeois  code,  and 
that  in  family  life  the  peasants  have  no  sort  of  delicacy.  If  a 
daughter  is  seduced,  they  do  not  take  a  moral  tone  unless  the 
seducer  is  rich  and  can  be  frightened.  Their  children,  until 
the  State  tears  them  away  from  their  parents,  are  so  much 
capital,  or  are  made  to  conduce  to  their  parents'  comfort. 
Selfishness,  more  especially  since  1789,  is  the  one  force  that 
sets  them  thinking ;  they  never  ask  whether  such  a  thing  is 
illegal  or  immoral,  but  what  good  it  will  do  them. 

Morality,  which  must  not  be  confused  with  religion,  begins 
with  a  competence,  just  as  in  still  higher  spheres  delicacy 
flourishes  in  human  nature  as  soon  as  fortune  has  gilded  the 
surrounding  furniture.  An  entirely  honest  and  well-conducted 
peasant  is  an  exception  to  his  class.  The  curious  will  ask 
how  this  is,  and  here  is  the  principal  cause,  one  of  many 
which  might  be  advanced:  The  peasant's  functions  in  the 
social  scale  bring  him  into  close  contact  with  nature ;  he  lives 
a  purely  material  life,  very  much  like  the  life  of  a  savage. 
The  toil  which  exhausts  the  body  leaves  the  mind  stagnant, 
and  this  is  especially  the  case  with  uneducated  people.  And, 
finally,  their  poverty  is  their  raison  d* £tat,  and  their  neces- 
sity is  to  them  a  necessity,  as  the  Abbe  Brossette  said. 

Tonsard  was  ready  to  listen  to  the  complaint  of  every  one, 
and  frauds  useful  to  the  needy  were  invented  under  his  direc- 
tion. The  wife,  a  good-natured  woman  to  all  appearance, 
helped  evil-doers  with  a  rancorous  tongue,  and  never  withheld 
her  countenance  or  refused  a  helping-hand  when  anything 
against  "the  masters  "  was  afoot.  The  tavern  was  a  perfect 
nest  of  vipers,  where  the  hatred  which  the  proletariat  and  the 
peasantry  bear  to  the  rich  and  their  employers  was  nursed  and 
kept  alive,  venomous  and  active. 

The  Tonsards'  prosperity  was,  in  those  times,  the  worst  of 
examples.  Every  one  asked  himself  why  he  should  not  help 
himself  to  wood  as  they  did  in  the  forest  of  the  Aigues,  and 
find  fuel  for  the  oven  and  faggots  for  cold  weather.  Why 


THE  PEASANTRY.  53 

should  not  every  one  else  feed  a  cow  on  rich  people's  pastures, 
and  have  game  enough  to  eat  and  to  sell  ?  Why  should  they 
not  reap  without  sowing  at  harvest  and  vintage  ?  Then  the 
underhand  theft,  which  robbed  the  woods  and  took  tithes  of 
the  cornland,  meadows,  and  vineyards,  promptly  came  to  be 
regarded  as  a  vested  interest  in  the  communes  of  Blangy, 
Conches,  and  Cerneux,  which  encircled  the  Aigues.  This 
canker,  for  reasons  which  will  be  explained  in  the  proper 
place,  was  far  worse  on  the  Aigues  estate  than  on  the  lands  of 
Ronquerolles  and  Soulanges.  Do  not  imagine  that  Tonsard, 
or  his  old  mother,  or  wife  or  children,  ever  said  in  so  many 
words,  "  We  will  steal  our  living,  and  we  will  do  our  thieving 
cleverly."  The  habits  had  formed  slowly.  The  family  began 
by  mixing  a  few  green  boughs  with  the  sticks ;  then,  grown 
bold  with  habit,  and  purposely  allowed  to  go  unpunished 
(part  of  a  scheme  to  be  developed  in  the  course  of  the  story), 
in  twenty  years'  time  they  had  come  to  the  point  of  "  taking 
their  wood,"  and  making  a  living  almost  entirely  by  pilfering. 
The  right  of  pasture  for  their  cows,  the  abuse  of  the  privileges 
of  gleaning  and  grape-gleaning,  had  been  established  little  by 
little  in  this  way ;  and  when  once  the  Tonsards  and  the  rest 
of  the  lazy  peasants  in  the  valley  had  felt  the  benefit  of  the 
four  rights  acquired  by  the  poor  in  the  country,  rights  pushed 
almost  to  spoliation,  it  may  be  imagined  that  they  were  not 
likely  to  relinquish  Aem  unless  compelled  by  some  force 
stronger  than  their  audacity. 

At  the  time  when  this  story  begins,  Tonsard  was  about  fifty 
years  old.  He  was  a  tall,  strong  man,  somewhat  inclined  to 
stoutness,  with  black  woolly  hair,  and  a  face  of  a  startling  hue, 
mottled  with  purplish  streaks  like  a  brick,  yellow  whites  to  his 
eyes,  flapping  ears  with  huge  rims,  a  low  flattened  forehead, 
and  hanging  lip.  A  deceptive  flabbiness  of  flesh  covered  the 
muscles  beneath,  and  the  man's  true  character  was  hidden 
under  a  certain  stupidity  enlightened  by  flashes  of  experience, 
which  seemed  the  more  like  wit  because,  in  the  society  of  his 


54  THE  PEASANTRY. 

father-in-law,  he  had  learned  a  dialect  called  "chaff"  in  the 
dictionary  of  Messieurs  Fourchon  and  Vermichel.  Tonsard's 
nose  was  flattened  at  the  end  as  if  the  finger  of  God  had  set  a 
mark  upon  him  j  he  spoke  in  consequence  from  the  roof  of  the 
mouth,  like  those  whom  disease  has  disfigured  by  thickening 
of  the  nasal  passages  through  which  the  breath  passes  with 
difficulty.  His  front  teeth  overlapped — a  defect  ominously 
significant,  according  to  Lavater,  and  the  more  conspicuous 
because  they  were  white  as  a  dog's  teeth.  There  was  that  in 
the  man,  beneath  the  veneer  of  an  idle  fellow's  good  humor 
and  the  easy-going  ways  of  a  tippling  boor,  which  should  have 
alarmed  the  least  perspicacious. 

Tonsard's  portrait,  the  picture  of  his  cabin,  and  the  sketch 
of  his  father-in-law  seem  to  occupy  a  prominent  position,  but 
you  may  be  sure  that  this  place  is  due  to  the  man,  the  tavern, 
and  the  family ;  for  the  life  which  has  been  so  minutely  de- 
scribed is  a  typical  life,  one  of  a  hundred  led  by  peasants  in 
the  valley  ;  and  although  Tonsard  was  only  a  tool  in  the  hands 
of  a  deeply  rooted  and  energetic  hate,  he  personally  exercised 
an  immense  influence  on  the  fortunes  of  the  battle  about  to  be- 
gin ;  he  was  the  cave  to  which  all  that  were  discontented  among 
the  lowest  class  betook  themselves;  his  tavern  (as  will  shortly 
be  seen)  was  over  and  over  again  the  trysting-place  of  the 
party,  even  as  he  himself  became  the  head  of  the  movement, 
by  reason  of  the  terror  which  he  inspired,  less  by  what  he 
actually  did  than  by  what  people  expected  him  to  do.  The 
poacher's  threats  were  quite  as  much  dreaded  as  his  action  ; 
he  was  never  obliged  to  carry  out  a  single  one  of  them. 

Every  rebellion,  open  or  covert,  has  its  standard.  The  flag 
of  marauders,  idlers,  and  sots,  therefore,  was  the  redoubtable 
bush  at  the  top  of  the  pole  by  the  gate  of  the  Grand-I-Vert. 
People  found  it  amusing  in  the  tavern,  and  amusement  is  as 
much  sought  after  and  as  hard  to  find  in  the  country  as  in  the 
town.  There  was  no  other  tavern,  moreover,  along  twelve 
miles  of  road,  a  journey  which  loaded  vehicles  easily  made  in 


THE   PEASANTRY.  55 

three  hours,  so  all  who  came  and  went  between  Conches  and 
Ville-aux-Fayes  stopped  at  the  tavern  if  only  for  a  rest.  Then 
the  miller,  the  deputy-mayor  of  the  arrondissement,  came  in 
now  and  then,  and  his  lads  came,  too;  the  general's  servants 
did  not  despise  the  little  wineshop,  for  Tonsard's  two  girls 
were  an  attraction,  and  so  it  fell  out  that  through  this  subterra- 
nean connection  with  the  castle  the  Tonsards  could  learn  all 
that  they  desired.  It  is  impossible,  by  dint  of  benefits  con- 
ferred or  expected,  to  break  the  permanent  alliance  between 
servants  and  the  people.  The  lackey  comes  from  the  people, 
and  to  the  people  he  belongs.  This  ill-omened  good-fellow- 
ship explains  Charles'  discreet  choice  of  language  at  the  foot 
of  the  flight  of  steps. 


IV. 


ANOTHER   IDYL. 

"Oh!  Lord  sakes,  dad  !  "  cried  Tonsard,  at  the  sight  of 
his  father-in-law,  whom  he  suspected  had  come  for  a  breakfast. 
"  You  are  dry  in  the  throat  too  early  of  a  morning.  We  have 
nothing  for  you  !  And  how  about  that  rope,  the  rope  you 
were  to  make  for  us  ?  It  is  a  marvel  how  you  work  at  it  of  an 
evening,  and  find  so  little  done  next  morning.  You  ought  to 
have  twisted  enough  to  twist  your  own  neck  with  ages  ago,  for 
you  are  growing  altogether  too  dear " 

(The  wit  of  the  peasant  and  laborer  is  of  the  exceedingly 
Attic  kind,  which  consists  in  saying  the  thing  that  you  really 
think  with  a  certain  grotesque  exaggeration  ;  nor  is  the  wit  of 
drawing-rooms  essentially  different ;  intellectual  subtleties  re- 
place the  picturesqueness  of  coarse,  forcible  language,  that  is 
all  the  difference.) 

"  'Tisn't  a  father-in-law,"  the  old  man  interrupted;  "treat 
me  as  a  customer.  I  want  a  bottle  of  the  best." 

So  saying,  Fourchon  sat  down,  showing  a  five-franc  piece 


56  THE  PEASANTRY. 

that  shone  like  a  sun  through  his  fingers  as  he  rapped  on  the 
sorry  table — a  piece  of  furniture  curious  to  behold  by  reason 
of  its  charred  spots,  wine  stains,  and  notches  covered  with  a 
coating  of  grease.  At  the  sound  of  silver,  Marie  Tonsard,  like 
a  privateering  corvette  on  a  cruise,  gave  her  grandfather  a 
quick  glance,  a  sly  look  that  gleamed  like  a  yellow  spark  in 
her  blue  eyes;  and  the  jingling  of  the  metal  brought  La 
Tonsard  out  of  her  room. 

"You  are  always  hard  on  poor  father,"  said  she,  looking  at 
Tonsard,  "and  yet  he  earns  a  good  deal  of  money  in  a  year. 
God  grant  it  is  honestly  come  by !  Let  us  have  a  look  at 
this,"  she  added,  and  she  pounced  down  on  the  coin,  and 
snatched  it  out  of  old  Fourchon's  hands. 

"Go,  Marie,"  Tonsard  said  with  gravity;  "there  is  still 
some  wine  in  the  bottle  left  under  the  shelf." 

(In  country  places  there  is  but  one  quality  of  wine,  but  it 
is  sold  under  two  names — wine  from  the  cask  and  wine  in 
bottle.) 

"Where  did  that  come  from?"  La  Tonsard  demanded  of 
her  father,  as  she  slipped  the  coin  into  her  pocket. 

"Philippine,  you  will  come  to  a  bad  end,"  retorted  her 
parent,  shaking  his  head,  without  an  attempt  to  recover  his 
money.  By  this  time,  doubtless,  Fourchon  recognized  the 
futility  of  a  struggle  between  his  terrible  son-in-law,  his 
daughter,  and  himself. 

"There's  one  more  bottle  of  wine  for  which  you  get  five 
francs  out  of  me,"  he  added  sarcastically,  "but  that  shall  be 
the  last.  I  shall  take  my  custom  to  the  Caf6  de  la  Paix." 

"You  be  quiet,  father,"  returned  the  fat,  fair  nustress  of 
the  house,  who  was  rather  like  a  Roman  matron.  "  You  want 
a  shirt,  a  tidy  pair  of  trousers,  and  another  hat,  and  I  should 
like  to  see  you  in  a  new  waistcoat  at  last." 

"I  have  told  you  before  that  that  would  be  the  ruin  of 
me!"  the  old  man  shouted.  "If  people  think  I  am  rich, 
they  won't  give  me  anything." 


THE  PEASANTRY.  57 

The  entrance  of  the  fair-haired  Marie  with  the  bottle  cut 
short  old  Fourchon's  eloquence,  for  he  did  not  lack  that  char- 
acteristic of  an  outspokenness  which  permits  itself  to  say  every- 
thing, and  shrinks  not  from  giving  any  thought  expression 
however  atrocious  it  may  be. 

"  Then  you  have  no  mind  to  tell  us  where  you  bag  so  much 
money?"  asked  Tonsard.  "Some  of  us  might  go  there,  I 
suppose? " 

The  brutal  master  of  the  house,  while  finishing  a  snare,  was 
eyeing  his  father-in-law.  He  scanned  the  old  man's  trousers, 
and  soon  spied  the  round  edge  of  the  second  five-franc  piece 
in  his  pocket. 

"Here's  to  you!  I  am  turning  capitalist,"  said  old 
Fourchon. 

"So  you  could,  if  you  liked,"  said  Tonsard;  "you  are 
clever  enough,  you  are,  only  the  devil  made  a  hole  in  the 
bottom  of  your  head,  and  everything  runs  down  through  it." 

"  Eh  !  I  have  been  playing  off  the  otter  dodge  on  that  young 
fellow  from  Paris  up  at  the  Aigues,  that  is  all !  " 

"  If  many  people  were  to  come  to  see  the  source  of  the 
Avonne,  you  would  be  rich,  Daddy  Fourchon,"  said  Marie. 

"Yes,"  and  he  drank  off  the  last  glass  of  his  bottle. 
"  But  I've  played  the  otter  dodge  so  often  that  the  otters 
are  growing  angry,  and  one  ran  between  my  legs,  which  will 
bring  me  twenty  francs  and  more." 

"You  made  an  otter  out  of  tow,  daddy,  I'll  be  bound," 
said  La  Tonsard,  with  a  knowing  look  at  the  old  man. 

"If  you  give  me  a  pair  of  trousers,  a  waistcoat,  and  a 
pair  of  list  braces,  so  as  I  shan't  be  too  much  of  a  discredit 
to  Vermichel  on  our  platform  at  the  Tivoli  (for  old  Socquard 
is  always  grumbling  at  me),  I  will  let  you  keep  the  money, 
daughter ;  your  idea  is  quite  worth  it.  I  may  take  in  that 
young  fellow  again ;  after  this  one  try,  he  may  very  likely 
take  to  otter-hunting." 

"  Go  and  find  us  another  bottle,"  said  Tonsard,  addressing 


58  THE  PEASANTRY. 

his  daughter.  "  If  your  father  had  an  otter,  he  would  let  us 
see  it,"  he  added,  speaking  to  his  wife.  He  hoped  to  rouse 
Fourchon's  vanity. 

"  I  am  too  much  afraid  ot  seeing  her  in  your  frying-pan," 
the  old  man  said,  and  one  little  green  eye  winked  at  La  Ton- 
sard.  "  Philippine  has  just  sneaked  my  five-france  piece, 
and  how  much  haven't  you  bullied  out  of  me  for  clothes  and 
board,  forsooth  !  And  you  tell  me  that  I  am  dry  too  early  in 
the  day,  and  I  never  have  clothes  to  my  back " 

"  Because  you  sold  your  last  suit  to  buy  spiced  wine  at  the 
Cafe  de  la  Paix !  "  said  his  daughter;  "and,  proof  of  that, 
Vermichel  tried  to  stop  you " 

"  Vermichel  !  After  I  stood  treat !  Vermichel  is  incapable 
of  treachery  to  friendship.  It  will  be  that  hundredweight  of 
stale  bacon  on  two  legs  that  he  is  not  ashamed  to  call  his 
wife!" 

"  He  or  she,"  said  Tonsard,  "  or  Bonnebault " 

"  If  it  was  Bonnebault,"  retorted  Fourchon,  "him  as  is  one 
of  the  pillars  of  the  cafe— I'll— I'll That's  enough  ?  " 

"But  where's  the  harm  if  you  did  sell  your  things,  old 
plate-licker  ?  You  sold  them  because  you  sold  them ;  you  are 
of  age,"  returned  Tonsard,  slapping  the  old  man's  knee. 
"  Come,  give  your  custom  to  my  barrels,  redden  your  gullet ; 
the  missus'  father  has  a  right  to  do  it,  and  better  do  that  than 
carry  your  white  silver  to  Socquard's." 

"  To  think  that  you  have  played  tunes  for  them  to  dance  to 
at  the  Tivoli  these  fifteen  years,  and  cannot  find  out  how  Soc- 
quard  mulls  his  wine,  you  that  are  so  cunning!"  said  his 
daughter,  addressing  her  parent.  "And  yet  you  know  quite 
well  that  with  that  secret  we  should  be  as  rich  as  Rigou." 

In  the  Morvan,  and  that  strip  of  Burgundy  which  lies  on 
the  Paris  side  of  the  Morvan,  the  spiced  wine  with  which  La 
Tonsard  reproached  her  father  is  a  somewhat  expensive  bever- 
age, which  plays  a  great  part  in  the  lives  of  the  peasants. 
Grocers  compound  it  with  more  or  less  success,  so  do  lemon- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  59 

ade-makers  where  there  are  cafes.  The  delectable  drink, 
composed  of  choice  wine,  sugar,  cinnamon,  and  other  spices, 
is  much  to  be  preferred  to  the  multifarious  mixtures  and  dis- 
guised forms  of  brandy  known  as  ratafia,  cent-sept-ans  (seven 
hundred  years),  eau-des-braves  (water  for  the  valiant),  cordial, 
vespetro,  esprit-de-soldl  (sun  spirit),  and  the  like.  Spiced  wine 
is  to  be  found  even  on  the  very  borders  of  Switzerland.  In 
wild  nooks  in  the  Jura,  where  an  occasional  determined  tour- 
ist penetrates,  the  innkeepers  call  it  Wine  of  Syracuse,  taking 
the  word  of  commercial  travelers.  It  is  not  bad  in  itself; 
and  when  mountain-climbing  has  induced  a  wolfish  hunger, 
you  are  only  too  glad  to  pay  the  three  or  four  francs  charged 
for  a  bottle.  In  every  household  in  Burgundy  or  the  Morvan 
any  trifling  ailment  or  excitement  is  an  excuse  for  drinking 
spiced  wine.  Women  take  it,  before  and  after  a  confinement, 
with  toast  and  sugar.  Peasants  have  been  known  to  squander 
their  whole  substance  on  spiced  wine,  and  not  unfrequently 
the  too  attractive  liquor  necessitates  marital  correction. 

"There  is  no  smoking  that,"  said  Fourchon.  "  Socquard 
always  shuts  himself  up  to  make  his  spiced  wine.  He  did 
not  let  his  wife  that's  gone  into  the  secret,  and  he  has  every- 
thing from  Paris  to  make  the  stuff." 

"Don't  you  tease  your  father,"  cried  Tonsard.  "He 
doesn't  know — well  and  good,  he  doesn't  know.  One  can't 
know  everything." 

Fourchon  felt  uneasy  at  this  affability  of  speech  and  counte- 
nance on  the  part  of  his  son-in-law. 

"  Be  you  minded  to  rob  me?  "  the  old  man  asked  naively. 

"J've  nothing  but  what  lawfully  belongs  to  me,"  said 
Tonsard ;  "  and  when  I  take  anything  away  from  you,  I  am 
only  helping  myself  to  the  portion  you  promised  I  should 
have." 

The  rough  words  reassured  Fourchon.  He  bowed  his  head, 
like  a  man  convicted  and  convinced. 

"There's  a  fine  springe,"  Tonsard  continued,  coming  up 


60  THE  PEASANTRY. 

to  his  father-in-law  and  putting  the  trap  on  the  old  man's 
knees. 

"  They  will  want  game  up  at  the  Aigues,  and  we  will  sup- 
ply them  with  some  of  their  own,  certain  sure,  or  there  is  no 
Providence  for  us  poor  folk. 

"You  have  made  a  good  strong  job  of  it,"  said  the  old 
man,  surveying  the  deadly  engine. 

"Let  us  pick  up  a  few  pence  at  any  rate,  dad,"  said  La 
Tonsard ;  "  we  shall  have  our  slice  of  the  loaf  of  the  Aigues 
almost " 

"Babblers!"  Tonsard  broke  in.  "If  I  am  hanged,  it 
will  not  be  for  a  gunshot,  but  the  clack  of  your  daughter's 
tongue." 

"Then  do  you  think  that  the  Aigues  will  be  sold  in  lots, 
for  the  sake  of  your  ugly  phiz  ?  What,  old  Rigou  has  been 
sucking  the  marrow  out  of  your  bones  these  thirty  years,  and 
you  don't  know  that  the  bourgeois  are  worse  than  the  seigneurs  ? 
When  that  affair  comes  off,  those  nobodies,  the  Soudrys, 
Gaubertins,  and  Rigous  will  set  you  dancing  to  the  tune  of 
'fai  du  bon  tabac,  tu  rf  en  auras  pas'*  the  national  anthem  of 
the  rich,  eh  ?  The  peasant  will  always  be  the  peasant.  Don't 
you  see  (but  you  know  nothing  about  politics)  that  Govern- 
ment puts  on  the  wine-dues  simply  to  do  us  out  of  our  chink 
and  keep  us  poor?  The  bourgeois  or  the  Government,  it  is 
all  one.  What  would  become  of  them  if  we  were  all  rich  ? 
Would  they  work  in  the  fields?  Would  they  do  the  harvest- 
ing ?  They  must  have  poor  folk.  I  was  rich  for  ten  years, 
and  I  know  quite  well  what  I  used  to  think  about  paupers  !  " 

"You  must  hunt  with  them,  all  the  same,"  said  Tonsard, 
"  because  they  break  up  the  big  estates  into  lots,  and  we  can 
turn  on  Rigou  afterward.  He  is  eating  up  Courtecuisse ;  but 
if  I  were  in  Courtecuisse's  place,  poor  fellow,  I  would  have 
paid  my  shot  in  lead  instead  of  silver,  long  ago " 

"Right  you  are,"  said  Fourchon.  "It  is  as  old  Niseron 
*  I  have  good  tobacco,  but  thou  has  none. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  61 

says,  who  kept  on  being  a  Republican  after  everybody  else 
left  off,  '  The  people  dies  hard,  the  people  don't  die,  they 
have  time  on  their  side  !  '  " 

The  old  man  dropped  into  a  kind  of  dream.  Tonsard  took 
advantage  of  this  to  take  back  his  springe  ;  but  as  he  laid  his 
hand  upon  it,  he  made  a  slit  with  a  pair  of  scissors  in  the  old 
man's  trousers,  and  just  as  Fourchon  raised  his  glass  to  drink 
the  five-franc  piece  slid  down  to  a  place  on  the  floor  that  was 
always  damp  with  the  dregs  of  glasses.  Tonsard  set  his  foot 
on  it.  It  was  neatly  done;  yet  the  old  man  might  perhaps 
have  found  it  out  if  Vermichel  had  not  turned  up  at  that  very 
moment. 

"Tonsard  !  "  called  that  functionary  from  the  foot  of  the 
steps.  "  Where  is  your  dad,  do  you  know  ?  " 

Vermichel  shouted,  the  coin  was  stolen,  and  the  glass 
emptied  simultaneously. 

"  Here,  captain  !  "  said  Fourchon,  holding  out  a  hand  to 
help  Vermichel  up  the  steps. 

You  cannot  imagine  a  type  more  throughly  Burgundian 
than  Vermichel.  His  countenance,  not  crimson  but  scarlet, 
like  certain  tropical  portions  of  the  globe  bore  several  con- 
spicuous extinct  volcanoes,  and  a  greenish  eruption,  which 
Fourchon  rather  poetically  called  "grog  blossoms."  The 
features  of  this  inflamed  face  had  been  swollen  out  of  all 
knowledge  through  habitual  drunkenness ;  it  was  a  cyclopean 
visage,  with  an  eye  keen  and  wide  awake  on  one  side,  but 
blind  on  the  other,  where  the  sight  was  obscured  by  a  yel- 
lowish film.  With  a  shock  head  of  red  hair  and  a  beard  of 
the  traditional  Judas  pattern,  Vermichel's  appearance  was  as 
formidable  as  his  nature  was  harmless.  His  trumpet-like 
nose  was  a  sort  of  note  of  interrogation,  to  which  a  huge  slit 
of  a  mouth  seemed  to  reply  even  when  shut. 

Vermichel  was  a  little  man.  He  wore  iron-bound  shoes, 
trousers  of  bottle-green  velveteen,  an  ancient  vest  so  much 
mended  that  it  looked  like  a  bit  of  patchwork  quilt,  a  rough, 


62  THE  PEASANTRY. 

blue  cloth  coat,  and  a  broad-brimmed  gray  hat.  This  splen- 
dor of  costume — demanded  of  him  by  his  functions  in  the 
town  of  -Soulanges,  where  he  combined  the  offices  of  hall- 
porter  at  the  town  hall,  town-crier,  gaoler,  fiddler,  and  solicitor 
— was  entirely  due  to  the  exertions  of  Mme.  Vermichel,  a  ter- 
rible foe  to  Rabelaisian  philosophy.  This  mustached  virago, 
a  good  yard  broad,  seventeen  stone  in  weight,  and  active  in 
proportion  to  her  size,  bore  rule  over  Vermichel ;  she  beat 
him  when  he  was  drunk,  and  when  he  was  sober  he  allowed 
her  to  beat  him,  for  which  reason  old  Fourchon  cast  con- 
temptuous eyes  on  Vermichel's  apparel — "  The  garb  of  a 
slave  !  "  he  used  to  call  it. 

"Talk  of  the  sun  and  you  see  his  rays,"  Fourchon  con- 
tinued, repeating  an  old  joke  occasioned  by  Vermichel's  red 
beaming  countenance,  and  indeed  it  was  not  unlike  the  gilded 
sun  hung  out  for  a  sign  above  country  inns.  "Did  your 
missus  see  too  much  dust  on  your  jacket,  and  are  you  running 
away  from  your  four-fifths?  (for  you  can't  call  that  wife  of 
yours  your  better  half}.  What  brings  you  here  so  early,  eh, 
beaten  drum?" 

"Politics,  as  usual,"  said  Vermichel;  evidently  he  was 
used  to  these  jokes. 

"Oh!  Business  is  flat  at  Blangy,  and  we  shall  have  bills 
protested  directly,"  said  old  Fourchon,  pouring  out  a  glass 
for  his  friend. 

"  Our  ape  is  on  my  tracks,"  said  Vermichel,  raising  his 
glass. 

In  laborers'  slang  the  ape  is  the  master.  This  was  another 
expression  in  Messrs.  Vermichel  and  Fourchon's  dictionary. 

"Why  is  Master  Brunei  coming  to  bother  us  up  here?" 
demanded  La  Tonsard. 

"  Eh,  goodness,  you  people  have  brought  him  in  more  than 
you  are  worth  yourselves  these  three  years.  Oh,  the  master 
up  at  the  Aigues  is  going  to  pay  you  out  properly.  He  is 
coming  on  well,  is  the  Upholsterer.  As  old  Brunei  says,  '  If 


THE  PEASANTRY.  63 

there  were  three  like  him  in  the  valley,  my  fortune  would  be 
made '" 

"  What  have  they  been  plotting  afresh  against  the  poor 
folk?"  asked  Marie. 

"My  word,"  answered  Vermichel,  "he  is  no  fool,  he 
isn't !  You  will  have  to  knuckle  under  in  the  long  run. 
There  is  no  help  for  it !  They  have  been  in  force  for  the 
last  two  years,  with  their  four  gamekeepers  and  a  mounted 
patrol  all  running  about  like  ants,  and  a  forester  that  works 
like  a  nigger.  And  now  the  police  will  do  anything  they 
like  for  them.  They  will  grind  you  down " 

"Not  they!"  said  Tonsard;  "we  are  too  small  already. 
It  is  not  the  trees  as  stands  out  longest,  it's  the  grass." 

"Don't  you  believe  it,"  old  Fourchon  retorted;  "you 
have  land  of  your  own " 

"After  all,"  Vermichel  went  on,  "  those  folk  are  very  fond 
of  you,  for  they  think  of  you  from  morning  to  night.  This 
is  the  sort  of  thing  they  say — '  Those  people  pasture  their 
cattle  on  our  meadows,  so  we  will  take  their  cattle  away  from 
them,  and  then  they  cannot  eat  the  grass  in  our  meadows  them- 
selves.' As  one  and  all  of  you  have  judgments  hanging  over 
you,  they  have  given  orders  to  our  ape  to  seize  your  cows. 
We  are  going  to  begin  with  Conches;  this  morning  we  shall 
seize  Mother  Bonnebault's  cow,  Godain's  cow,  Mitant's  cow 
beside " 

As  soon  as  Marie  heard  the  name  of  Bonnebault,  she  looked 
knowingly  at  her  father  and  mother,  and  darted  out  of  the 
house  and  into  the  vineyard ;  she  was  Bonnebault's  sweet- 
heart, and  the  old  woman  with  the  cow  was  Bonnebault's 
grandmother.  She  slipped  like  an  eel  through  a  hole  in  the 
hedge,  and  fled  away  to  Conches  with  the  speed  of  a  hare  with 
the  hounds  on  her  track. 

"They  will  do  this  much,"  said  Tonsard  placidly;  "they 
will  get  their  bones  broken,  and  that  will  be  a  pity,  for  their 
mothers  won't  find  them  new  ones." 


64  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"That  may  very  well  happen,  all  the  same,"  assented 
Fourchon.  "But  look  here,  Vermichel,  I  can't  come  with 
you  for  an  hour  yet ;  I  have  important  business  at  the  castle." 

"More  important  than  three  fees  of  five  sous  each?  You 
had  better  not  quarrel  with  your  own  bread  and  butter." 

"My  business  lies  at  the  Aigues,  I  tell  you,  Vermichel," 
said  old  Fourchon,  with  ludicrous  self-importance. 

"  Beside,  suppose  that  father  had  better  be  out  of  the  way," 
said  La  Tonsard.  "  Now,  maybe  you  would  mean  to  look  for 
the  cows?"  she  queried. 

"  Monsieur  Brunei  is  a  good  soul ;  if  he  finds  nothing  but 
the  cow-dung,  he  will  ask  no  better,"  answered  Vermichel. 
"A  man  like  him,  that  has  to  go  about  the  roads  of  a  night, 
ought  to  mind  what  he  is  about." 

"If  he  does,  he  is  right,"  Tonsard  said  drily. 

"So  he  talks  like  this  to  Monsieur  Michaud,"  Vermichel 
went  on.  "'I  shall  go  as  soon  as  the  court  rises.'  If  he 
really  meant  to  find  the  cows,  he  would  have  gone  to-morrow 
morning  at  seven  o'clock.  But  there,  go  he  must,  Monsieur 
Brunet.  You  won't  catch  Michaud  napping  twice ;  he  is  an 
old,  old  dog,  and  up  to  everything.  Ah,  there's  a  ruffian  for 
you !  " 

"A  bully  like  that  ought  to  have  stopped  in  the  army," 
said  Tonsard ;  "he  is  only  fit  to  let  loose  on  the  enemy.  I 
wish  he  would  come  here,  I  know,  and  ask  me  my  name ;  he 
may  call  himself  a  veteran  of  the  Young  Guard  as  much  as  he 
pleases,  sure  am  I  that,  after  we  measured  our  spurs,  I'd  pull 
more  feathers  out  of  the  old  cock  than  he  would  have  out  of 
me." 

"Oh,  by-the-by,"  said  La  Tonsard,  turning  to  Vermichel, 
"  there  are  the  advertisements  of  the  fete  at  Soulanges,  when 
will  they  be  out?  Here  we  are  at  the  8th  of  August." 

"  I  took  them  yesterday  to  the  printer,  Monsieur  Bournier, 
at  Ville-aux-Fayes,"  said  Vermichel.  "There  was  talk  at 
Ma'am  Soudry's  of  fireworks  on  the  lake." 


THE  PEASANTRY.  65 

"What  a  lot  of  people  we  shall  surely  have!"  cried  old 
Fourchon. 

"  And  the  takings  of  days  together  for  Socquard,"  said 
Tonsard  enviously. 

"  Oh,  perhaps  it  will  rain,"  added  his  wife,  as  if  to  reassure 
herself. 

The  sound  of  horse-hoofs  came  from  the  direction  of  Sou- 
langes,  and  five  minutes  later  the  clerk  of  the  court  tied  his 
horse  to  a  stake  set  for  that  purpose  by  the  wicket-gate,  near 
the  cowshed.  He  soon  showed  his  face  at  the  door. 

"  Come,  come,  boys,  let  us  lose  no  time,"  cried  he,  with  a 
pretense  of  hurry. 

"Ha!  "  said  Vermichel,  "here's  a  deserter  for  you,  Mon- 
sieur Brunei.  Daddy  Fourchon  wants  to  drop  out  of  this 
business." 

"He  has  had  a  drop  too  much,"  retorted  the  clerk,  "but 
the  law  does  not  require  him  to  be  sober." 

"Asking  your  pardon,  Monsieur  Brunet,"  said  Fourchon, 
"  I  am  expected  at  Aigues  on  business  ;  there  is  a  bargain  for 
an  otter  on  hand." 

Brunet  was  a  little  dried-up  man,  dressed  in  black  cloth 
from  head  to  foot.  With  his  bilious  complexion,  sly  eyes, 
crisp  hair,  firm  mouth,  pinched  nose,  fidgety  manner,  and 
hoarse  voice,  his  whole  appearance  and  character  exactly 
suited  his  profession.  So  well  versed  was  he  in  law,  or, 
rather,  in  chicanery,  that  he  was  at  once  the  adviser  and  the 
terror  of  the  canton  ;  and,  moreover,  he  did  not  lack  a  certain 
kind  of  popularity  among  the  peasants,  of  whom,  for  the  most 
part,  he  took  payment  in  kind.  All  his  positive  and  negative 
qualities,  together  with  his  knowledge  of  all  their  ways,  had 
brought  him  a  practice  in  the  district,  to  the  prejudice  of  his 
colleague,  Maitre  Plissoud,  of  whom  more  will  be  said  later 
on.  It  not  unfrequently  happens  in  country  places  that  one 
clerk  of  the  peace  does  all  the  business,  and  the  other  has 
none. 
5 


66  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"Then  is  there  any  hurry?"  asked  La  Tonsard  of  little 

Brunei. 

"There  is  no  help  for  it!  You  are  plundering  that  man 
beyond  everything,  and  it's  in  self-defense,"  said  the  clerk. 
"This  whole  business  of  yours  will  end  badly;  the  Govern- 
ment will  take  it  up." 

"  So  we  poor  wretches  are  to  die  like  dogs,  are  we?  "  asked 
Tonsard,  bringing  out  a  glass  of  brandy  on  a  platter  for  the 
clerk. 

"  The  poor  may  die  like  dogs,  there  will  always  be  plenty 
left,"  said  Fourchon  sententiously. 

"And  then  you  do  more  damage  than  a  little  in  the 
woods,"  pursued  the  man  of  law. 

"Don't  you  believe  it,  Monsieur  Brunei;  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  noise  made  about  a  few  miserable  faggots,  that  there 
is !  "  said  La  Tonsard. 

"  They  did  not  clear  away  enough  rich  people  at  the  time 
of  the  Revolution,  that  is  all,"  said  Tonsard. 

As  he  spoke  a  sound  was  heard,  alarming  in  that  it  was  in- 
explicable. A  sound  of  footsteps  at  a  furious  pace,  the  rattle 
of  arms  rising  above  a  crackling  sound  of  brushwood  dragged 
along  the  ground,  and  a  patter  of  feet  that  fled  faster  than  the 
pursuer.  Two  voices  as  different  as  the  footsteps  bawled  in- 
terjections. The  group  in  the  tavern  knew  that  it  was  a  man 
in  hot  chase  and  a  woman  in  flight,  but  why  and  wherefore  ? 
The  suspense  did  not  last  long. 

"That's  mother,"  remarked  Tonsard,  starting  up;  "I 
know  her  squall." 

And  in  another  moment,  after  springing  up  the  broken 
steps  with  a  final  effort  such  as  smugglers'  legs  alone  can  make, 
Granny  Tonsard  fell  backward,  sprawling  in  their  midst.  The 
huge  mass  of  wood  and  sticks  in  her  faggot  made  a  terrific 
amount  of  noise  as  it  bent  and  broke  against  the  lintel  and  the 
ceiling.  Every  one  whisked  out  of  her  way.  Tables,  bottles, 
and  chairs  were  overturned  in  all  directions  as  the  branches 


THE  PEASANTRY.  67 

fell  about ;  the  whole  cabin  might  have  fallen  in  with  a  less 
mighty  crash. 

"He  has  killed  me,  the  scamp!  the  shock  has  killed  me 
and " 

Then  the  old  woman's  shriek,  flight,  and  sudden  entrance 
were  all  explained  by  an  apparition  on  the  threshold ;  there 
stood  a  man  dressed  in  green  cloth  from  head  to  foot,  his  hat 
bound  with  a  silver  cord,  a  sabre  at  his  side,  and  the  crest  of 
Montcornet  and  Troisville  stamped  on  his  shoulder  belt ;  he 
wore  the  soldier's  regulation-red  vest  and  leather  gaiters  reach- 
ing just  above  the  knee. 

It  was  a  forester.  There  was  a  moment's  hesitation ;  then 
the  man  exclaimed,  as  he  saw  Brunei  and  Vermichel,  "  I  have 
witnesses  1  " 

"  Of  what  ?  "  asked  Tonsard. 

"That  woman  has  an  oak  ten  years  old,  chopped  into  bil- 
lets, in  her  faggot.  Downright  stealing  !  " 

As  soon  as  the  word  "  witness  "  was  pronounced,  Vermichel 
considered  that  the  moment  was  eminently  suitable  for  going 
into  the  croft  to  take  the  air. 

"  Witnesses  of  what  ?  Of  what  ?  "  cried  Tonsard,  planting 
himself  in  front  of  the  forester,  while  La  Tonsard  raised  her 
prostrate  mother-in-law.  "  Have  the  goodness  to  show  me  a 
clean  pair  of  heels,  Vatel  !  Pounce  on  people  and  draw  up 
your  reports  on  the  highway  where  you  are  on  your  own 
ground,  you  brigand,  but  get  out  of  this.  My  house  belongs 
to  me,  I  suppose.  A  man's  house  is  his  castle,  and  you  know 
right  well " 

"  I  caught  your  mother  in  the  act,  and  she  will  come  along 
with  me." 

"Arrest  my  mother  in  my  house  !  You  have  no  right  to  do 
it !  My  house  is  inviolable,  every  one  knows  that  much  at 
least.  Have  you  a  magistrate's  warrant  from  Monsieur  Guer- 
bet  ?  Ah !  that  is  what  the  police  must  have  before  they  come 
into  the  house,  and  you  are  not  a  policeman,  though  you  may 


68  THE  PEASANTRY. 

have  taken  your  oath  at  the  court  to  make  us  die  of  hunger, 
you  pitiful  forest  catch-poll." 

The  forester's  rage  rose  to  such  a  pitch  that  he  tried  to 
seize  on  the  faggot ;  but  the  old  hag,  a  hideous,  dirty  bit  of 
parchment  endowed  with  life,  such  as  you  will  not  see  save  in 
David's  picture  of  the  Sabines,  yelled,  "  If  you  touch  that, 
I'll  go  for  your  eyes." 

' '  Look  here,  I  dare  you  to  undo  the  faggot  before  Monsieur 
Brunei,"  said  the  forester. 

Although  the  clerk  assumed  the  air  of  indifference  which 
officials  learn  to  wear  in  experience  of  aifairs,  he  looked  at 
the  host  and  his  wife,  and  blinked  in  a  way  which  meant, 
"  This  is  a  bad  business !  " 

As  for  old  Fourchon,  he  pointed  to  the  heap  of  ashes  on  the 
hearth,  and  looked  at  his  daughter.  In  a  moment  La  Tonsard 
grasped  the  situation,  her  mother-in-law's  peril,  and  her 
father's  mute  counsel ;  she  snatched  up  a  handful  of  ashes 
and  dashed  it  full  in  the  forester's  eyes.  Vatel  began  to  yell. 
Tonsard,  illuminated  by  all  the  light  of  which  the  other  was 
bereft,  pushed  him  roughly  out  on  to  the  steps,  where  a  blind 
man  might  easily  miss  his  footing.  Vatel  rolled  down  into 
the  road,  and  dropped  his  gun.  In  the  twinkling  of  an  eye 
the  faggot  was  unbound,  the  logs  extracted  and  hidden  with  a 
nimbleness  which  no  words  can  describe.  Brunet,  having  no 
mind  to  be  a  witness  to  an  exploit  which  he  had  foreseen, 
hurried  out  to  the  forester's  assistance,  picked  him  up,  set  him 
on  the  bank,  and  went  to  soak  his  handkerchief  in  water,  so 
as  to  bathe  the  sufferer's  eyes;  for,  in  spite  of  the  pain,  the 
man  was  trying  to  drag  himself  toward  the  brook  to  ease  his 
anguish. 

"Vatel,  you  are  in  the  wrong,"  said  the  clerk.  "You 
have  no  right  to  enter  a  house,  you  know " 

On  the  threshold  stood  the  old  woman,  a  dwarfish,  almost 
hunchbacked  figure ;  lightnings  flashed  from  her  eyes,  while 
insults  poured  from  her  tongue  ;  the  toothless  crone  foamed  at 


THE  PEASANTRY.  69 

the  mouth,  standing  with  her  hands  on  her  hips,  yelling  so  loud 
that  they  might  have  heard  her  at  Blangy. 

"Ah  !  scamp,  serves  you  right,  it  does !  Hell  confound 
you  !  Suspect  me  of  cutting  trees,  me  the  honestest  woman  in 
the  place,  and  hunt  me  down  like  vermin  !  I  should  like  to 
see  you  lose  your  cursed  eyes !  and  then  there  would  be  peace 
again  in  the  countryside.  You  bring  bad  luck,  every  one  of 
you,  you  and  your  mates,  making  up  shameful  stories  to  stir 
up  strife  between  your  master  and  us " 

The  forester  submitted  while  the  justice's  clerk  cleared  the 
ashes  from  his  eyes,  and  bathed  them,  demonstrating  all  the 
while  that  his  patient  had  put  himself  in  the  wrong  as  to  the 
law. 

"  The  harridan  !  She  has  tired  us  out,"  Vatel  said  at  last; 
"she  has  been  in  the  wood  ever  since  it  was  light " 

Meanwhile  the  stolen  goods  were  concealed,  the  whole  family 
lent  a  hand,  and  in  a  trice  everything  in  the  tavern  was  in  its 
place  again.  This  done,  Tonsard  came  to  the  door  and  took 
a  high  and  mighty  tone. 

"Vatel,  sonny,  the  next  time  you  take  it  into  your  head  to 
force  your  way  into  my  house,  my  gun  will  have  something 
to  say  to  you.  You  have  had  the  ashes  this  time,  you  may 
catch  a  sight  of  the  fire  next.  You  don't  know  your  business. 
You  are  feeling  warm  after  this  ;  if  you  would  like  a  glass  of 
wine,  they'll  bring  one  for  you ;  you  can  see  for  yourself  if 
there  is  a  scrap  of  live  wood  in  my  mother's  faggot,  it  is  all 
sticks." 

"  Scum  of  the  earth  !  "  ejaculated  the  forester  for  Brunei's 
benefit,  more  hurt  in  his  mind  by  that  piece  of  irony  than  by 
the  ashes  in  his  eyes. 

Just  at  that  moment  Charles,  the  man  who  had  been  sent 
in  search  of  Blondet,  appeared  at  the  gate. 

"  Why,  what  is  the  matter,  Vatel  ?  "  cried  he. 

"  Oh  !  "  answered  the  forester,  drying  his  eyes,  which  he 
had  been  dipping  wide  open  in  the  stream  for  a  final  cleansing, 


70  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  I  have  some  debtors  up  there  ;  I  will  make  them  curse  the 
day  when  they  first  saw  the  light." 

"If  that  is  the  way  you  take  it,  Monsieur  Vatel,"  said 
Tonsard  coolly,  "  you  will  find  out  that  we  Burgundians  are 
no  milksops." 

Vatel  went  off.  Charles,  but  little  curious  to  know  the 
meaning  of  the  enigma,  looked  in  at  the  tavern  door. 

"  Come  up  to  the  castle,  you  and  your  otter,  if  you  have 
one,"  said  he  to  old  Fourchon. 

The  old  man  hastily  rose  and  followed  Charles  down  the 
castle  road. 

"Look  here  now,  where  is  that  otter  of  yours?"  asked 
Charles,  smiling  incredulously. 

"Over  here,"  said  the  other,  turning  toward  the  Thune. 
The  Thune  was  a  little  stream  formed  by  the  overflow  of  the 
millstream  and  the  rivulets  in  the  park  at  the  Aigues.  The 
Thune  flows  by  the  side  of  the  road  until  it  reaches  the  little 
lake  at  Soulanges,  pouring  into  it  on  one  side  and  out  at  the 
other,  turning  the  mills  at  Soulanges,  filling  the  ponds  by  the 
castle,  and  finally  joining  the  Avonne  again. 

"  There  her  is.  I  hid  her  in  the  bottom  of  the  stream  at 
the  Aigues  with  a  stone  tied  to  her  neck." 

As  the  old  man  stooped  and  raised  himself  again,  he  missed 
the  five-franc  piece  from  his  pocket ;  such  a  coin  was  there  so 
seldom  that  he  missed  the  novel  sensation  at  once. 

"  Oh  !  the  rascals  !  "  he  cried  ;  "  I  snare  otters,  and  they 
snare  their  father,  they  do.  They  take  all  that  I  make  from 
me,  and  tell  me  that  it  is  for  my  benefit.  Oh,  I  believe 
them,  when  they  talk  about  my  benefit.  If  it  weren't  for 
poor  Mouche,  the  comfort  of  my  old  age,  I  would  go  and 
drown  myself.  Children  are  the  ruin  of  their  fathers.  You 
are  not  married,  are  you,  Monsieur  Charles  ?  Never  marry, 
and  then  you  won't  have  to  repent  of  breeding  bad  blood. 
And  I  thinking  that  now  I  could  buy  some  tow !  There's  my 
tow  slipped  through  my  fingers.  That  gentlema-n,  and  a  nice 


7 HE  PEASANTRY.  71 

gentleman  he  is,  gave  me  ten  francs.  Well,  for  one  thing, 
my  otter  has  gone  up  in  value  now  since  this  happened." 

Charles  put  so  little  belief  in  Daddy  Fourchon  that  he 
took  these  lamentations,  which  for  once  were  full  of  a  very 
real  feeling,  for  part  of  the  preparation  of  a  "  try  on,"  as  he 
called  it,  in  the  language  of  the  servants'  hall,  and  he  made  a 
blunder  by  betraying  his  opinion  in  a  smile,  which  the  spiteful 
old  man  saw  at  once. 

"  Look  here,  Daddy  Fourchon,  you  must  behave  yourself, 
eh  ?  You  will  speak  to  madame  in  a  moment,"  said  Charles, 
who  noticed  the  profusion  of  brilliant  carbuncles  on  the  old 
man's  nose  and  cheeks. 

"  I  know  what  I  am  about,  Charles,  as  you  shall  see.  And 
if  you  will  undertake  to  give  me  some  of  the  scraps  left  over 
from  breakfast  and  a  couple  of  bottles  of  Spanish  wine  in  the 
kitchen,  I  will  tell  you  in  three  words  how  to  escape  a  drub- 
bing  " 

"  Tell  me,  and  Francois  shall  have  the  master's  orders  to 
give  you  a  glass  of  wine,"  said  the  footman. 

"Is  it  a  bargain?" 

"A  bargain." 

"All  right.  You  shall  have  a  word  or  two  with  Catherine 
under  the  bridge  over  the  Avonne.  Godain  is  in  love  with 
her,  he  has  seen  you  together,  and  he  is  stupid  enough  to  be 
jealous.  Stupid,  I  say,  because  a  peasant  has  no  business  with 
sentiment,  that  is  for  rich  people.  So  if  you  go  to  Soulanges 
for  a  dance  with  her  at  the  Tivoli  on  the  fete  day,  you  will  be 
made  to  dance  more  than  you  think  for  !  Godain  is  miserly, 
and  has  a  nasty  temper ;  he  is  just  the  one  to  break  your  arm, 
and  you  could  not  summons  him  for  it " 

"Too  dear !  Catherine  is  a  fine  girl,  but  she  is  not  worth 
///a/,"  said  Charles.  "  And,  pray,  what  makes  Godain  take  it 
amiss?  The  others  don't." 

"  Oh  !  he's  enough  in  love  with  her  to  marry  her." 

"  There  is  a  woman  that  will  be  beaten  !  "  said  Charles. 


72  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"That  is  as  may  be,"  returned  the  grandfather.  "  Tonsard 
never  lifted  a  hand  against  her  mother,  so  frightened  he  was 
that  she  should  go  off  and  leave  him,  and  Catherine  takes 
after  her  mother.  A  wife  that  can  bestir  herself  is  worth  a 
good  deal.  And,  beside,  at  a  game  of  hot  cockles  with 
Catherine,  Godain,  strong  though  he  is,  would  not  come  off 
best." 

"Wait,  Daddy  Fourchon,  here  are  forty  sous  for  you  to 
drink  to  my  health  in  case  we  mayn't  be  able  to  get  a  sup  of 
Alicante." 

Old  Fourchon  looked  away  as  he  pocketed  the  money,  lest 
Charles  should  see  the  ironical  glee  in  his  eyes,  which  he  could 
not  hide. 

"  Catherine  is  a  rare  wench  for  a  glass,"  said  the  old  man ; 
"she  is  fond  of  malaga ;  you  ought  to  tell  her  to  come  to  the 
Aigues  for  some,  you  ninny  !  " 

Charles  looked  at  old  Fourchon  with  undisguised  admira- 
tion ;  why  should  he  guess  how  immensely  important  it  was 
to  the  general's  enemies  to  introduce  one  more  spy  into  the 
house. 

"The  general  must  be  pleased,"  the  old  man  went  on; 
"  the  peasants  are  keeping  very  quiet.  What  does  he  say 
about  it?  Is  he  still  quite  satisfied  with  Sibilet?" 

"  Nobody  gives  Sibilet  any  trouble  except  Michaud  ;  they 
say  he  will  contrive  to  make  him  lose  his  place." 

"  Two  of  a  trade  !  "  commented  old  Fourchon.  "  I'll  lay 
to  it  that  you  yourself  would  be  glad  to  see  Francois  turned 
off  to  step  into  his  place." 

"  Lord,  Francois  gets  twelve  hundred  francs,"  said  Charles ; 
"but  they  won't  turn  him  away,  he  knows  the  general's 
secrets ' ' 

"Just  as  Ma'am  Michaud  knew  my  lady's,  eh?  "  said  Four- 
chon, eyeing  Charles  keenly.  "  Look  here,  my  lad,  do  you 
know  whether  the  general  and  my  lady  have  rooms  apart?" 
he  added. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  73 

"Of  course,  or  the  master  would  not  be  so  fond  of  madame 
as  he  is." 

"Don't  you  know  any  more?"  asked  Fourchon;  but  no 
more  could  be  said,  for  by  this  time  the  pair  were  under  the 
kitchen  windows. 

V. 

THE   ENEMIES   FACE   TO   FACE. 

As  soon  as  breakfast  was  begun,  Francois,  the  first  valet-de- 
chambre,  came  to  Blondet,  saying  in  a  low  voice,  but  quite 
loud  enough  to  be  overheard  by  the  count,  "Fourchon's  little 
boy  says  that  they  caught  the  otter  at  last,  sir,  and  he  wants 
to  know  if  you  would  like  to  have  the  animal  before  taking  it 
to  the  sub-prefect  at  Ville-aux-Fayes." 

Emile  Blondet,  pastmaster  in  mystification,  flushed  red  in 
spite  of  himself,  like  a  girl  who  hears  an  equivocal  anecdote 
and  understands  the  drift  of  it. 

"Aha  !  you  have  been  out  otter-hunting  with  old  Fourchon 
this  morning!"  cried  the  general,  bursting  into  a  roar  of 
laughter. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  the  countess,  disconcerted  by  her 
.  ..band's  hilarity. 

"  When  a  clever  man  like  Blondet  lets  old  Fourchon  take 
him  in,  an  old  cuirassier  need  not  blush  to  have  gone  hunting 
that  same  otter,  who  looks  uncommonly  like  the  third  horse 
which  you  never  see  and  always  pay  for  when  you  travel  post." 

And  in  a  voice  broken  by  peals  of  laughter,  the  general 
managed  to  add,  "After  that,  I  do  not  wonder  that  you 
changed  your  boots  and  trousers,  you  must  have  been  made 
to  swim.  As  for  me,  I  was  not  hoaxed  quite  so  far  as  you. 
I  stopped  on  the  bank — but  then  you  are  so  much  cleverer 
than  I  am " 

"You  forget,  dear,  that  I  do  not  know  what  you  are  talking 
about,"  put  in  Mme.  de  Montcornet,  with  a  trace  of  pique, 


74  THE  PEASANTRY. 

caused  by  Blondet's  confusion.  At  this  the  general  recovered 
his  gravity,  and  Blondet  himself  told  the  story  of  his  otter 
hunt. 

"  But  if  they  really  have  an  otter,"  said  the  countess,  "they 
are  not  so  much  to  blame,  poor  things." 

"Yes ;  only  no  one  has  seen  the  otter  for  these  ten  years  !  " 
returned  the  pitiless  general. 

"  Monsieur  le  Comte,"  said  Francois,  "  the  child  vows  and 
declares  that  he  has  caught  one " 

"If  they  have  an  otter,  I  will  pay  them  for  it,"  said  the 
general. 

"  Providence  can  never  have  condemned  the  Aigues  to  be 
without  otters  for  ever,"  put  in  the  Abbe  Brossette. 

"  Oh,  Monsieur  le  Cure,  if  you  let  loose  Providence  upon 
us "  exclaimed  Blondet. 

"But  who  can  have  come?  "  the  countess  asked  quickly. 

"  Mouche,  my  lady,  the  little  boy  that  always  goes  about 
with  old  Fourchon,"  the  servant  answered. 

"Send  him  in — if  madame  has  no  objection,"  said  the 
general.  "  He  will  perhaps  amuse  you." 

"  But  at  any  rate  we  ought  to  know  what  to  believe,  ought 
we  not  ?  "  asked  the  countess. 

A  few  moments  later  Mouche  appeared  in  his  almost  naked 
condition.  At  this  apparition  in  the  splendid  dining-room  of 
poverty  personified  when  the  price  of  a  single  mirror  on  the 
walls  would  have  been  a  fortune  to  the  barefooted,  barelegged, 
bareheaded  child,  it  was  impossible  not  to  give  way  to  chari- 
table impulses.  Mouche's  eyes,  like  glowing  coals,  gazed  from 
the  glories  of  the  room  to  the  riches  on  the  table. 

"You  have  no  mother,  of  course?"  said  the  countess,  un- 
able to  explain  such  destitution  in  any  other  way. 

"  No,  my  lady ;  mammy  died  of  fretting  because  daddy 
went  for  a  soldier  in  1812,  and  she  never  saw  him  again  ;  he 
did  not  marry  her  with  ifre  papers  before  he  went,  and  he  was 
frozen,  saving  your  pr^ence.  But  I  have  my  Grandad  Four- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  75 

chon,  who  is  very  good  to  me,  though  he  does  beat  me  now 
and  again  like  a  Jesus." 

"  How  does  it  happen,  dear,  that  any  one  on  your  land  is 
so  wretched?  "  asked  the  countess,  looking  at  the  general. 

"  No  one  need  be  wretched  here,  Madame  la  Comtesse, 
unless  they  choose,"  said  the  cure.  "Monsieur  le  Comte 
means  well  by  them,  but  you  have  to  do  with  a  people  with- 
out religion,  people  who  have  but  one  idea — how  to  live  at 
your  expense." 

"  But,  my  dear  cure,"  said  Blondet,  "  you  are  here  to  keep 
them  in  order." 

"  My  lord  bishop  sent  me  here  as  a  missionary  among 
heathen,  monsieur,"  said  the  Abbe  Brossette;  "but,  as  I  had 
the  honor  of  pointing  out  to  him,  our  heathen  in  France  are 
unapproachable  ;  they  make  it  a  rule  hot  to  listen  to  us ;  now 
in  America  you  can  appeal  to  the  savages." 

"  M'sieu  le  Cure,  they  do  a  little  for  me  now,  but  if  I  went 
to  your  church  they  would  give  over  helping  me  altogether. 
I  should  have  them  calling  '  shovel  hats  '  after  me,"  interjected 
Mouche. 

"  But  religion  ought  to  begin  by  giving  him  trousers,  my 
dear  abbe,"  said  Blondet.  "  Do  not  your  missions  begin  by 
coaxing  the  savage?" 

"He  would  have  sold  his  clothes  before  long,"  the  abb6 
answered,  lowering  his  voice,  "  and  my  stipend  does  not  allow 
me  to  traffic  in  souls  in  that  way." 

"Monsieur  le  Cur£  is  right,"  said  the  general,  who  was 
looking  at  Mouche.  The  urchin's  tactics  consisted  in  feign- 
ing ignorance  wherever  he  had  the  worst  of  it. 

"The  little  rascal  is  evidently  intelligent  enough  to  know 
right  from  wrong,"  continued  the  general.  "He  is  old 
enough  to  work,  and  his  one  thought  is  how  to  transgress  and 
escape  punishment.  He  is  well  known  to  the  foresters.  Be- 
fore I  was  mayor  he  knew,  young  as  he  was,  that  if  a  man  is 
witness  of  a  trespass  on  his  own  land,  he  cannot  lodge  a  com- 


76  THE  PEASANTRY. 

plaint  himself,  and  he  would  brazenly  stay  in  my  meadows 
grazing  his  cows  under  my  eyes;  now,  he  makes  off." 

"  Oh !  that  is  very  wrong,"  said  the  countess  ;  "  we  ought 
not  to  take  other  people's  goods,  dear  child." 

"  One  must  eat,  my  lady.  Grandad  gives  me  more  cuffs 
than  crusts,  and  it  makes  you  feel  hollow  inside,  does  a  hiding. 
When  the  cows  have  milk,  I  help  myself  to  a  little,  and  that 
keeps  life  in  me.  Is  his  lordship  so  poor  that  he  can't  spare 
a  little  grass  so  that  I  may  drink?  " 

"Why,  perhaps  he  has  had  nothing  to  eat  to-day,"  said 
the  countess,  touched  by  such  dire  poverty.  "Just  let  him 
have  some  bread  and  the  rest  of  the  fowl ;  give  him  some 
breakfast,  in  fact,"  she  said,  looking  at  the  servant.  "  Where 
do  you  sleep? 'r  she  added. 

"Anywhere,  wherever  they  will  let  us  sleep  in  the  winter, 
my  lady,  and  out  of  doors  in  the  summer." 

"  How  old  are  you  ?  " 

"Twelve." 

"Then  something  might  be  made  of  him  yet/'  said  the 
countess,  turning  to  her  husband. 

"Might  make  a  soldier,"  said  the  general  gruffly;  "he  is 
in  good  training  for  it.  I  myself  have  been  through  quite  as 
much  of  that  sort  of  thing  as  he  has,  and  yet  here  I  am." 

"Asking  your  pardon,  general,  I  am  not  on  the  register," 
said  the  child.  "I  shall  not  be  drawn.  My  poor  mother 
was  not  married,  and  I  was  born  out  in  the  fields ;  I  am  a  son 
of  the  '  airth,'  as  grandad  says.  Mammy  saved  me  from  the 
militia.  I  don't  call  myself  Mouche  any  more  than  anything 
else.  Grandad  showed  me  plainly  where  I  was  well  off.  The 
Government  haven't  got  me  on  their  papers,  and  when  I  am 
old  enough  to  be  drawn  I  shall  go  on  my  travels  through 
France.  They  won't  catch  me  !  " 

"Do  you  love  your  grandfather?"  asked  the  countess, 
trying  to  read  the  heart  of  twelve  years  old. 

"  Lord,  he  cuffs  me  whenever  the  fit  takes  him,  but  there  is 


THE  PEASANTRY.  77 

no  help  for  it.  He  is  so  funny,  such  a  good  sort !  And  then 
he  says  that  he  is  taking  pay  for  teaching  me  to  read  and 
write." 

"  Can  you  read  ?  "  asked  the  count. 

"I  should  think  I  could,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  and  fine 
writing  too  !  true  as  it  is  that  we  have  an  otter !  " 

"What  is  this?  "  the  count  asked,  holding  out  a  newspaper. 

"The  Cu-o-ti-dienne"  pronounced  Mouche,  without  stumb- 
ling more  than  three  times  over  the  word.  Everybody,  even 
the  Abb6  Brossette,  joined  in  the  laugh  that  followed. 

"Well,"  cried  Mouche  sulkily,  "you  are  setting  me  to 
read  them  newspapers,  and  grandad  says  that  they  are  written 
for  rich  people,  but  you  always  get  to  know  later  on  what 
there  is  inside  them." 

"  The  child  is  right,  general ;  he  makes  me  long  to  meet 
the  man  who  got  the  better  of  me  this  morning  once  again," 
said  Blondet ;  "I  see  that  there  was  a  touch  of  Mouche  in 
his  hoax." 

Mouche  understood  perfectly  well  that  he  was  there  for  the 
master's  amusement.  Old  Fourchon's  scholar  showed  himself 
worthy  of  his  master;  he  began  to  cry. 

"  How  can  you  make  fun  of  a  barefooted  child?"  asked 
the  countness. 

"  A  child  who  thinks  it  quite  natural  that  his  grandfather 
should  take  out  his  pay  for  his  schooling  in  slaps?"  asked 
Blondet. 

"Poor  little  one,  look  here,"  said  the  lady;  "have  you 
caught  an  otter?" 

"  Yes,  my  lady,  as  true  as  that  you  are  the  prettiest  lady  I 
have  seen  or  ever  shall  see,"  said  the  child,  wiping  away  his 
tears. 

"  Just  let  us  see  this  otter,"  said  the  general. 

"  Oh,  M'sieu  le  Comte,  grandad  hid  her  away ;  but  she  was 
still  kicking  when  we  were  at  the  rope-walk.  You  can  send 
for  my  grandad,  for  he  wants  to  sell  her  himself." 


7g  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"Take  him  to  the  kitchen  and  give  him  his  breakfast,  and 
send  Charles  for  old  Fourchon  meanwhile,"  the  countess  bade 
Francois.  "And  see  if  you  can  find  some  shoes  and  trousers 
and  a  jacket  for  the  boy.  Those  who  come  here  naked  must 
go  away  again  clothed " 

"God  bless  you,  dear  lady,"  said  Mouche  as  he  went. 
"  M'sieu  le  Cure  may  be  sure  that  the  clothes  you  give  me  will 
be  laid  up  for  high  days  and  holidays." 

Emile  and  Mme.  de  Montcornet  exchanged  glances.  This 
last  remark  surprised  them.  "That  boy  is  not  so  silly,"  their 
looks  seemed  to  tell  the  cure. 

"Certainly,  madame,"  said  the  cure  as  soon  as  the  boy 
had  gone,  "you  cannot  call  a  reckoning  with  poverty.  To 
my  thinking,  the  poor  have  justifications  which  God  alone  can 
see  and  take  into  account,  justifications  in  physical  causes 
which  often  produce  baleful  results,  and  other  justifications 
springing  from  character,  produced  by  tendencies,  blame- 
worthy as  we  think,  but  yet  the  result  of  qualities  which, 
unfortunately  for  society,  find  no  outlet.  The  miracles 
worked  on  battlefields  have  taught  us  that  the  lowest  scoundrel 
may  have  the  makings  of  a  hero  in  him.  But  here  you  are 
placed  in  a  very  unusual  position ;  and  if  reflection  does  not 
keep  pace  with  benevolence,  you  run  the  risk  of  subsidizing 
your  enemies " 

"Enemies?"  echoed  the  countess. 

"Bitter  enemies,"  the  general  spoke  gravely. 

"Old  Fourchon  and  his  son-in-law  Tonsard  represent  the 
whole  intelligence  of  the  poorest  folk  in  the  valley;  their 
advice  is  asked  and  taken  in  the  most  trifling  matters.  Their 
Machiavellism  reaches  an  incredible  pitch.  You  may  take  this 
for  granted,  that  ten  peasants  in  a  wineshop  are  the  small 
change  for  a  big  intrigue " 

As  he  was  speaking,  Francois  announced  Monsieur  Sibilet, 
the  steward. 

"This  is  the  minister  of  finance,"  said  the  general,  smiling; 


THE  PEASANTRY.  79 

"  send  him  in.  He  will  explain  the  gravity  of  the  situation 
to  you,"  he  added,  glancing  from  his  wife  to  Blondet. 

"And  so  much  the  better  in  that  he  will  scarcely  make  the 
least  of  it,"  said  the  cure,  in  a  hardly  audible  voice. 

Blondet  saw  for  the  first  time  a  personage  whose  acquaint- 
ance he  wished  to  make — the  steward  of  the  Aigues,  of  whom 
he  had  heard  much  since  his  arrival.  Sibilet  was  a  man  of 
thirty  or  thereabouts ;  he  was  of  middle  height,  with  a  sullen, 
unpleasant  face,  which  a  laugh  seemed  to  suit  ill.  The  eyes 
of  changing  green,  under  an  anxious  brow,  looked  different 
ways,  and  thus  disguised  his  thoughts.  His  long,  straight 
hair  gave  him  a  somewhat  clerical  appearance ;  he  wore  a 
brown  greatcoat  and  a  black  vest  and  trousers  ;  he  was  knock- 
kneed,  and  the  trousers  imperfectly  concealed  this  defect. 

In  spite  of  his  unwholesome  appearance,  sallow  complexion, 
and  flabby  muscles,  Sibilet  had  a  strong  constitution.  The 
somewhat  gruff  tones  of  his  voice  harmonized  with  the  gen- 
erally unprepossessing  appearance  of  the  man. 

Blondet  and  the  Abbe  Brossette  exchanged  a  furtive  glance, 
and  in  the  fleeting  expression  in  the  eyes  of  the  young  ecclesi- 
astic Blondet  read  the  confirmation  of  his  own  suspicions. 

"  You  set  down  the  peasants'  thefts  at  about  one-fourth  the 
value  of  the  yearly  returns,  do  you  not,  my  dear  Sibilet?" 
asked  the  general. 

"At  a  good  deal  more  than  that,  Monsieur  le  Comte," 
returned  the  steward.  "Your  paupers  take  more  than  the 
Government  asks  of  you.  There  is  a  young  rogue  called 
Mouche  who  gleans  his  two  bushels  per  day ;  and  old  women, 
whom  any  one  would  think  at  their  last  gasp,  will  recover 
health  and  youth  and  the  use  of  their  limbs  at  harvest-time. 
That  is  a  phenomenon  which  you  can  see  for  yourself,"  con- 
tinued Sibilet,  turning  to  Blondet,  "  for  we  shall  begin  in  six 
days'  time;  the  rain  in  July  has  made  the  harvest  late  this 
year.  We  shall  be  cutting  the  rye  next  week.  Nobody  ought 
to  glean  without  a  certificate  of  poverty  from  the  mayor  of  the 


80  THE  PEASANTRY. 

commune,  and  a  commune  ought  on  no  account  to  allow  any 
but  the  very  poor  to  glean  at  all,  but  all  the  communes  in  the 
district  glean  over  each  other  without  certificates.  For  sixty 
poor  people  in  the  commune,  there  are  forty  more  who  will 
not  do  a  day's  work ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  even  those 
who  have  set  up  for  themselves  will  leave  their  work  to  glean 
in  the  fields  or  the  vineyards. 

"  Here  these  folk  will  pick  up  three  hundred  bushels  a  day 
among  them,  and  the  harvest  lasts  a  fortnight — four  thousand 
five  hundred  bushels  taken  away  in  the  canton.  So  the  glean- 
ing amounts  to  about  one-tenth  of  the  whole  harvest ;  and  as 
to  the  abuse  of  grazing,  that  makes  a  hole  in  our  profits,  about 
a  sixth  of  the  value  of  our  meadows  goes  in  that  way.  Then 
there  are  the  woods,  they  do  incalculable  mischief  there,  cut- 
ting down  the  young  saplings  six  years  old.  The  damage 
done  to  your  estate,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  mounts  up  to  twenty 
and  some  odd  thousand  francs  per  annum." 

"Well,  madame,"  said  the  general,  "do  you  hear  that?" 

"Is  it  not  exaggerated?"  asked  Mme.  de  Montcornet. 

"  No,  unhappily  it  is  not,  madame,"  said  the  cure.    "  There 

is  poor  Father  Niseron,  the  white-haired  old  man  who  unites 

in  person  all  the  offices  of  bellringer,  beadle,  sexton,  sacristan, 

and  chanter,  in  spite  of  his  republican  opinions — in  fact,  he 

is  the  grandfather  of  that  little  Genevieve  whom  you  placed 

under  Madame  Michaud " 

"  La  Pechina  !  "  said  Sibilet,  interrupting  the  abbe. 
"La   Pechina?"    asked    the   countess.     "What    do   you 
mean?" 

"  Madame  la  Comtesse,  when  you  saw  little  Genevieve  by 
the  wayside  looking  so  forlorn,  you  exclaimed  in  Italian  :  Pic- 
ana  !  And  now  it  has  become  a  nickname,  and  so  corrupted 
that  the  whole  commune  knows  your  protege  by  the  name  of 
the  Pechina.  She  is  the  only  one  who  comes  to  church,  poor 
little  thing,  with  Mesdames  Michaud  and  Sibilet,"  added  the 
cur6. 


FOURCHON    AND    MOUCHE. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  81 

"Yes,  and  she  is  none  the  better  off  for  that,"  said  the 
steward.  "  She  is  persecuted  for  her  religion." 

"  Well,"  continued  the  cur6,  "  this  poor  old  man  of  seventy- 
two  picks  up  a  bushel  and  a  half  in  a  day,  and  does  it  honestly 
moreover,  but  he  is  too  conscientious  to  sell  his  gleanings  as 
the  rest  of  them  do;  he  keeps  the  grain  for  his  own  con- 
sumption. As  a  favor  to  me,  Monsieur  Langlume,  your  dep- 
uty, grinds  his  corn  for  nothing,  and  my  servant  bakes  his 
bread  with  mine." 

"I  had  forgotten  my  little  protege,"  said  the  countess, 
startled  by  Sibilet's  remarks.  "Your  coming  has  put  other 
things  out  of  my  head,"  she  added,  turning  to  Blondet. 
"  But  after  breakfast  we  will  go  to  the  Avonne  gate,  and  I 
will  show  you  a  living  woman  like  a  fifteenth-century  painter's 
dream." 

As  she  spoke,  a  pair  of  cracked  sabots  was  put  down  with 
a  clatter  at  the  kitchen  door,  and  old  Fourchon  was  announced 
by  Francois.  The  countess  nodded  permission,  and  Francois 
brought  the  old  man  into  the  room,  Mouche  following  behind 
with  his  mouth  full,  and  holding  the  otter  by  a  string  tied  to 
its  yellow  paws,  ribbed  like  a  duck's  foot.  Old  Fourchon 
glanced  at  the  gentry  seated  at  table,  gave  Sibilet  the  half- 
defiant,  half-servile  look  that  veils  a  peasant's  thoughts;  then 
he  brandished  the  amphibian  triumphantly. 

"  Here  her  is  !  "  he  cried,  looking  at  Blondet. 

"That  is  my  otter  though,"  demurred  the  Parisian;  "I 
paid  plenty  for  it." 

"  Oh,  your  otter  got  away,  my  dear  sir !  "  retorted  old 
Fourchon.  "She  is  in  her  hole  at  this  minute;  she  had  no 
mind  to  come  out  of  it ;  her  was  the  female,  while  this  here 
is  the  male  !  Mouche  saw  it  come  out,  a  long  way  off,  after 
you  had  gone.  'Tis  as  true  as  that  Monsieur  le  Comte  covered 
himself  with  glory  along  with  his  Cuirassiers  at  Waterloo  ! 
The  otter  is  as  much  mine  as  the  Aigues  belongs  to  his  lord- 
ship the  general.  But  for  twenty  francs  the  otter  is  yours, 
6 


82  THE  PEASANTRY. 

otherwise  I  will  take  it  to  our  sub-perfect.  If  Monsieur  Gour- 
don  thinks  it  too  dear,  as  we  went  hunting  together  this 
morning,  I  give  the  gentleman  from  Paris  the  preference,  as  is 
but  fair." 

"Twenty  francs!"  put  in  Blondet.  "In  plain  French, 
that  is  not  exactly  what  you  might  call  giving  me  the 
preference." 

"  Eh  !  my  dear  sir,"  cried  the  old  man,  "  I  know  so  little 
French,  that  if  you  like  I  will  ask  you  for  them  in  Burgundian  ; 
it's  all  one  to  me  so  long  as  I  get  the  francs,  I  will  speak 
Latin  :  laiinus,  latina,  latinum.  After  all,  it  is  only  what  you 
promised  me  yourself  this  morning;  and,  beside,  my  children 
have  taken  your  money  from  me  already ;  I  cried  about  it  as 
I  came  along.  You  ask  Charles — I  don't  like  to  summons 
them  for  ten  francs  and  publish  their  bad  doings  at  the  court. 
As  soon  as  I  make  a  few  sous  they  get  them  away  from  me  by 
making  me  drink.  It  is  hard  that  I  can't  go  to  take  a  glass 
of  wine  in  my  own  daughter's  house,  but  that  is  what  children 
are  in  these  days !  That  is  what  comes  of  the  Revolution ; 
it's  everything  for  the  children  now,  and  their  fathers  are  put 
upon.  Ah !  I  am  eddicating  Mouche  here  in  quite  another 
way.  The  little  rapscallion  is  fond  of  me,"  he  remarked,  ad- 
ministering a  slap  to  his  grandson. 

"  It  looks  to  me  as  if  you  were  making  him  into  a  petty 
thief,  just  like  the  rest  of  them,"  said  Sibilet,  "  for  he  never 
lies  down  without  something  on  his  conscience." 

"  Oh !  Master  Sibilet,  his  conscience  is  easier  than  what 

yours  is  ! Poor  child,  what  does  he  take  ?  A  trifle  of  grass, 

that  is  better  than  throttling  a  man  !  Lord,  he  doesn't  know 
mathematics  like  you;  he  doesn't  understand  subtraction  and 
addition  and  multiplication.  You  do  us  a  lot  of  harm,  you 
do !  You  tell  people  that  we  are  a  pack  of  brigands,  and  you 
are  at  the  bottom  of  the  division  between  his  lordship  there, 
who  is  a  good  man,  and  the  rest  of  us,  who  are  good  folk. 
There  ain't  a  better  place  than  this  is. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  83 

"Look  here!  Have  we  money  coming  in  ?  Don't  we  go 
without  clothes  to  our  backs,  as  you  may  say,  Mouche  and  I  ? 
Fine  sheets  we  sleep  in,  bleached  in  the  dew  every  morning; 
and  unless  you  grudge  us  the  air  we  breathe,  and  the  light  of 
the  sun,  and  our  drink,  there  is  nothing  that  I  see  that  any 
one  can  want  to  take  from  us !  The  bourgeois  do  their  rob- 
beries in  the  chimney-corner,  and  it  pays  much  better  than 
picking  up  things  that  lie  about  in  corners  of  the  wood.  There 
are  no  foresters  nor  mounted  keepers  for  Master  Gaubertin, 
who  came  here  bare  as  a  worm,  and  has  two  million  francs 
this  day. 

"  '  Thieves  ! '  is  soon  said;  but  there  is  old  Guerbet,  as  col- 
lects the  taxes,  has  gone  out  of  our  villages  at  night  with  his 
receipts  these  fifteen  years,  and  nobody  has  ever  asked  him 
for  two  farthings.  That  is  not  the  way  in  a  country  of 
thieves.  We  are  not  much  the  richer  for  theft.  Just  show 
me  this — whether  it  is  we  or  you  who  live  by  doing  noth- 
ing?" 

"  If  you  had  not  been  idle,  you  would  have  something  to 
live  on,"  said  the  cure.  "God  blesses  work." 

"  I  don't  like  to  contradict  you,  Monsieur  1'Abbe,  for  you 
know  more  than  I  do,  and  perhaps  you  can  explain  this  to 
me.  Here  am  I,  am  I  not?  A  lazy,  idle  sot,  a  good-for- 
nothing  of  an  old  Fourchon,  who  has  had  some  education, 
has  been  a  farmer,  fell  into  difficulties,  and  never  got  out  of 
them  !  Well,  now,  where  is  the  difference  between  me  and 
that  good,  honest  old  man  Niseron,  a  vine-dresser,  seventy 
years  old  (for  he  and  I  are  of  an  age),  who  has  been  digging 
the  soil?  up  before  daylight  every  morning  to  go  to  his  work, 
till  he  has  a  body  like  iron  and  a  noble  soul.  I  see  that  he  is 
just  as  poor  as  I  am.  There  is  La  Pechina,  his  granddaughter, 
gone  out  to  service  with  Ma'am  Michaud,  while  my  little 
Mouche  is  free  as  the  air  !  Is  the  poor  old  man  rewarded  for 
his  virtues  in  the  same  way  that  I  am  punished  for  my  vices? 
He  does  not  know  what  a  glass  of  wine  is ;  he  is  as  sober  as  an 


84  '  THE  PEASANTRY. 

apostle ;  he  digs  graves  for  the  dead,  and  I  set  the  living 
a-dancing.  He  has  dined  with  Duke  Humphrey  [gone 
hungry],  while  I  have  tippled  down  the  liquor  like  a  rollicking 
devil-may-care  creature.  And  one  has  come  just  as  far  as  the 
other ;  we  have  the  same  snow  on  our  heads,  the  same  cash  in 
our  pockets,  he  rings  the  bell,  and  I  make  the  rope.  He  is  a 
Republican  and  I  am  a  sinner,  and  not  even  a  publican.  Let 
the  peasant  do  ill  or  well,  according  to  your  notions,  he  will 
end  as  he  began,  in  rags,  and  you  in  fine  linen " 

Nobody  interrupted  old  Fourchon,  who  seemed  to  owe  his 
eloquence  to  the  bottled  wine ;  at  the  outset  Sibilet  tried  to 
cut  him  short,  but  at  a  sign  from  Blondet  the  steward  was 
dumb.  The  cure,  the  general,  and  the  countess  gathered 
from  the  journalist's  glances  that  he  wished  to  study  the 
problem  of  pauperism  from  the  life,  and,  perhaps,  to  be  quits 
with  old  Fourchon. 

"And  what  do  you  mean  about  Mouche's  education? 
How  do  you  set  to  work  to  bring  him  up  to  be  a  better  child 
to  you  than  your  daughters  ?  " 

"Does  he  so  much  as  speak  to  him  of  God?"  asked  the 
cure. 

"  Oh  !  not  I,  Mosieur  le  Cure,  I  be'ant  telling  him  to  fear 
God,  but  men.  God  is  good,  and  has  promised,  according  to 
you  parsons,  that  we  shall  have  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  as  the 
rich  keep  the  kingdom  of  earth.  I  say  to  him — 'Mouche! 
fear  the  jail !  for  you  go  out  of  jail  to  the  scaffold.  Never 
steal  anything;  make  them  give  you  what  you  want !  Stealing 
leads  to  murder,  and  murder  brings  down  the  justice  of  men 
on  you.  The  razor  of  justice — that  is  to  be  feared ;  it  secures 
the  rich  man's  slumber  against  the  poor  man  that  lies  awake. 
Learn  to  read.  Education  will  put  it  in  your  power  to  make 
money  under  cover  of  the  law,  like  clever  Monsieur  Gaubertin. 
You  will  be  a  steward,  eh  !  like  Monsieur  Sibilet,  whom  his 
lordship  the  count  allows  his  rations.  The  great  thing  is  to 
keep  well  with  the  rich;  there  are  crumbs  under  rich  men's 


THE  PEASANTRY.  85 

tables.  That  is  what  I  call  a  fine  education  and  thorough, 
too.  So  the  young  whelp  keeps  on  this  side  of  the  law.  He 
will  be  a  steady  boy ;  he  will  take  care  of  me  !  " 

"And  what  will  you  make  of  him?"  inquired  Blondet. 

"A  gentleman's  servant,  to  begin  with,"  answered  Four- 
chon,  "  because  seeing  the  masters  from  near,  his  education 
will  be  thoroughly  finished,  that  it  will !  Good  example  will 
teach  him  to  make  his  way  with  the  law  to  back  him  like  the 
rest  of  you  !  If  his  lordship  will  take  him  into  his  stables  to 
learn  to  rub  down  the  horses,  the  little  fellow  will  be  very 
much  pleased — seeing  that  though  he  fears  men,  he  is  not 
afraid  of  animals." 

"  You  are  a  clever  man,  Daddy  Fourchon,"  began  Blondet. 
"  You  know  quite  well  what  you  are  saying,  and  there  is  some 
sense  in  what  you  say." 

"  Oh  !  my  certy  !  no,  I  have  left  my  senses  at  the  Grand- 
I-Vert  along  with  my  two  five-franc  pieces." 

"  How  came  such  a  man  as  you  to  drift  into  such  poverty? 
For  as  things  are  now,  a  peasant  has  only  himself  to  thank  if 
he  does  badly ;  he  is  free,  he  can  become  rich.  It  is  not  as 
it  used  to  be  any  longer.  If  a  peasant  can  scrape  a  little 
money  together,  he  finds  a  bit  of  land,  he  can  buy  it,  and  he 
is  his  own  master." 

"  I  saw  the  old  times,  and  I  see  the  new,  my  dear  learned 
sir,"  replied  Fourchon  ;  "  they  have  put  up  a  new  signboard, 
but  the  liquor  is  the  same  as  ever.  To-day  is  only  yesterday's 
younger  brother.  There  !  you  put  that  in  your  paper  !  En- 
franchised, are  we  ?  We  still  belong  to  the  same  village,  and 
the  seigneur  (lord)  is  there  still ;  I  call  him  Hard  Labor. 
The  hoe,  which  is  all  our  property,  has  not  passed  out  of  our 
hands.  And  anyhow,  whether  we  work  for  the  seigneur  or 
for  the  tax-collector,  who  takes  the  best  part  of  what  we 
make,  we  have  to  sweat  our  lives  out " 

"  But  why  not  choose  a  handicraft  and  try  your  luck  else- 
where?" asked  Blondet. 


86  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  Are  you  talking  to  me  of  setting  out  to  seek  my  fortune  ? 
But  where  should  I  go  ?  I  must  have  a  passport,  which  costs 
forty  sous,  before  I  can  go  out  of  the  department.  These 
forty  years  I  have  not  been  able  to  hear  a  slut  of  a  two-franc 
piece  jangle  with  another  in  my  pocket.  If  you  go  straight 
before  you,  for  every  village  you  come  to  you  want  a  three- 
franc  piece,  and  there  are  not  many  of  the  Fourchon  family 
that  have  the  wherewithal  to  visit  six  villages  !  Nothing 
drags  us  from  our  communes  except  the  conscription.  And 
what  does  the  army  do  for  us  !  The  colonel  lives  on  the  com- 
mon soldier  as  the  master  lives  on  the  laborer.  Does  one 
colonel  out  of  a  hundred  spring  from  our  loins  ?  In  the  army, 
as  in  the  rest  of  the  world,  for  one  that  grows  rich  a  hundred 
drop  out.  For  want  of  what  ?  God  knows — so  do  the  money- 
lenders. 

"  So  the  best  thing  we  can  do  is  to  stop  in  our  communes, 
where  we  are  penned  up  like  sheep  by  the  force  of  circum- 
stances, just  as  we  used  to  be  by  the  seigneurs.  And  I  care 
not  a  rap  who  nails  me  here.  Nailed  down  by  necessity,  or 
nailed  down  by  the  nobles,  we  are  condemned  for  life  to 
labor  on  the  soil.  Wherever  we  are,  we  turn  up  the  soil,  and 
dig  it  and  dung  it,  and  work  for  you  that  are  born  rich,  as  we 
are  born  poor.  The  mass  will  always  be  the  same ;  what  it 
is,  it  always  is.  Those  of  us  who  go  up  in  the  world  are 
fewer  than  those  of  you  who  come  down.  We  know  this 
very  well,  if  we  haven't  book-learning,  that  it  won't  do  to  be 
down  upon  us  at  every  moment.  We  leave  you  in  peace  ;  let 
us  live.  Otherwise,  if  this  goes  on,  you  will  be  forced  to 
feed  us  in  your  prisons,  where  we  are  far  more  comfortable 
than  on  our  straw.  You  are  our  masters,  and  you  mean  to 
remain  so ;  we  shall  always  be  enemies,  to-day  as  for  these 
last  thirty  years.  You  have  everything,  we  have  nothing,  so 
you  cannot  expect  us  to  be  your  friends  yet." 

"That  is  what  is  called  a  declaration  of  war,"  said  the 
general. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  87 

11  When  the  Aigues  belonged  to  the  poor  lady  that  is  gone 
(the  Lord  have  mercy  on  her  soul,  for  she  was  a  wanton 
singer  in  her  youth)  we  were  well  off,  your  lordship.  Her  let 
us  pick  up  a  living  in  her  fields,  and  take  our  firing  in  her 
forests ;  her  was  none  the  poorer  for  that !  And  you,  that  are 
at  least  as  rich  as  she  was,  hunt  us  down  like  wild  beasts,  nor 
more  nor  less,  and  drag  the  poor  people  before  the  magistrate. 
Ah,  well !  no  good  will  come  of  that.  You  will  have  some 
ugly  doings  laid  at  your  door.  I  have  just  seen  your  forester, 
that  curmudgeon  of  a  Vatel,  all  but  kill  a  poor  old  woman 
about  a  stick  of  firewood.  They  will  make  an  enemy  of  the 
people  of  you ;  they  will  grow  bitter  against  you  at  '  up- 
sittings '  as  they  work  and  talk ;  they  will  curse  you  as  heartily 
as  they  used  to  bless  madame  that  is  gone.  The  poor  man's 
curse  grows,  your  lordship ;  it  grows  higher  than  the  biggest 
of  your  oak-trees,  and  the  oak-tree  grows  into  the  gallows- 
tree.  Nobody  here  tells  you  the  truth ;  this  is  truth  that  I 
am  telling  you!  Death  may  come  to  me  any  morning;  I 
have  not  much  to  lose  by  letting  you  have  the  truth  for  less 
than  market  price.  I  play  tunes  along  with  Vermichel  for 
the  peasants  to  dance  to  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix  at  Soulanges ; 
I  hear  their  talk.  Well,  then,  there  is  a  bad  feeling  toward 
you ;  they  will  make  the  country  too  hot  to  hold  you.  If 
your  damned  Michaud  doesn't  turn  over  a  new  leaf,  they  will 
force  you  to  turn  him  away!"  Then,  after  a  moment's 
pause:  "There,  now!  the  advice  and  the  otter  are  cheap  at 
twenty  francs " 

As  old  Fourchon  delivered  himself  of  these  final  remarks,  a 
man's  footsteps  sounded  outside,  and  the  object  of  his  men- 
aces suddenly  appeared  unannounced.  It  was  easy  to  see  that 
the  threat  had  reached  Michaud's  ears  from  the  look  which 
he  gave  the  orator  of  the  poor.  Old  Fourchon's  impudence 
forsook  him ;  he  looked  like  a  thief  confronted  with  the 
policeman.  He  knew  that  he  had  made  a  mistake,  and  that 
Michaud  had,  as  it  were,  a  right  to  call  him  to  account,  for 


88  THE  PEASANTRY. 

an  outpouring  evidently  meant  to  intimidate  the  dwellers  at 
the  Aigues. 

"  Behold  the  minister  of  war,"  said  the  general,  addressing 
Blondet,  with  a  gesture  that  indicated  Michaud. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  madame,  for  coming  into  the  room 
without  asking  your  leave,"  remarked  the  minister,  "but  I 
must  speak  to  the  general  on  urgent  business." 

While  Michaud  made  his  apologies  he  watched  Sibilet. 
The  joy  of  the  man's  heart  at  Fourchon's  bold  tone  expanded 
over  his  visage,  unnoticed  by  any  of  those  who  sat  at  the  table, 
who  were  interested  in  no  small  degree  by  the  otter  hunter. 
But  Michaud,  who,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  was  always  on  the 
watch  with  Sibilet,  was  struck  with  the  expression  of  the  stew- 
ard's face. 

"  He  has  certainly  earned  his  twenty  francs,  as  he  says, 
Monsieur  le  Comte,"  cried  Sibilet;  "the  otter  is  not  dear." 

"Give  him  twenty  francs,"  said  the  general,  addressing  his 
valet. 

"  Are  you  really  taking  it  from  me?  "    Blondet  asked  him. 

"  I  will  have  the  animal  stuffed,"  cried  the  count. 

"  Oh  !  your  lordship,  that  kind  gentleman  would  have  let 
me  have  the  skin  !  "  protested  old  Fourchon. 

"Very  well,"  said  the  countess.  "You  shall  have  five 
francs  for  the  skin,  but  you  can  go  now " 

The  strong,  rank  odor  of  the  two  dwellers  on  the  highway 
tainted  the  air  of  the  room,  and  so  offended  Mme.  de  Mont- 
cornet's  delicate  senses  that,  if  the  pair  had  stayed  there 
much  longer,  the  lady  would  have  been  obliged  to  go.  It  was 
solely  to  this  inconvenient  quality  that  Fourchon  owed  his 
twenty-five  francs.  He  went  out,  still  eyeing  Michaud  fear- 
fully, and  making  him  obeisances  without  end. 

"  What  I  been  telling  his  lordship,  Mister  Michaud,"  said 
he,  "was  for  your  good." 

"Or  for  the  good  of  them  that  you  take  pay  of,"  said 
Michaud,  looking  him  through  and  through. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  89 

" Bring  coffee  and  leave  us,"  the  general  ordered;  "and 
before  all  things,  shut  the  doors." 

Blondet  had  not  yet  seen  the  head-forester  at  the  Aigues ; 
his  first  impression  was  very  different  from  that  just  made  upon 
him  by  Sibilet.  Michaud  inspired  confidence  and  esteem  as 
great  as  the  repulsion  excited  by  Sibilet. 

The  head-forester's  face  caught  your  attention  at  once  by 
its  shapely  outlines — the  oval  contours  were  as  delicately 
moulded  as  the  profile,  a  regularity  of  feature  seldom  found  in 
an  ordinary  Frenchman.  Yet,  in  spite  of  this  regularity  of 
feature,  the  face  was  not  lacking  in  character,  perhaps  by  rea- 
son of  its  harmonious  coloring,  in  which  red  and  tawny  tints 
prevailed,  indications  of  physical  courage.  The  clear,  brown 
eyes  were  bright  and  keen,  unfaltering  in  the  expression  of 
thought,  and  looked  you  straight  in  the  face.  The  broad, 
open  brow  was  set  still  further  in  relief  by  thick,  black  hair. 
There  was  a  wrinkle  here  and  there,  traced  by  the  profession 
of  arms,  on  the  fine  face  lit  up  by  loyalty,  decision,  and  self- 
reliance.  If  any  doubt  or  suspicion  entered  his  mind,  it  could 
be  read  there  at  once.  His  figure,  still  slender  and  shapely, 
as  is  the  case  with  the  men  picked  out  for  a  crack  regiment  of 
cavalry,  was  such  that  the  head-forester  might  be  described  as 
a  strapping  fellow.  Michaud  kept  his  mustaches,  whiskers, 
and  a  beard  beneath  the  chin  ;  altogether,  he  recalled  a  mili- 
tary type  which  a  deluge  of  patriotic  prints  and  pictures  has 
made  almost  ridiculous.  The  defect  of  the  type  is  its  over- 
abundance in  the  French  army ;  but,  perhaps,  this  uniformity 
of  physiognomy  has  its  origin  in  the  continuity  of  emotions, 
the  hardships  of  camp  life,  from  which  no  rank  is  exempt,  and 
the  fact  that  the  same  efforts  are  made  on  the  field  of  battle 
by  officers  and  men  alike. 

Michaud  was  dressed  in  dark  blue  from  head  to  foot ;  Tie 
still  wore  the  black  satin  stock  and  soldiers'  boots,  just  as  he 
held  himself  somewhat  stiffly,  with  his  shoulders  set  back  and 
chest  expanded,  as  if  he  still  bore  arms.  The  red  ribbon  of 


90  THE  PEASANTRY. 

the  Legion  of  Honor  adorned  his  buttonhole.  And  (to  add  a 
final  trait  of  character  to  a  sketch  of  the  mere  outside  of  the 
man)  while  the  steward,  since  he  had  come  into  office,  had 
never  omitted  the  formula  "  Monsieur  le  Comte  "  in  address- 
ing his  patron,  Michaud  had  never  called  his  master  by  any 
name  but  "  the  general." 

Once  again  Blondet  exchanged  a  significant  glance  with  the 
Abbe  Brossette.  "  What  a  contrast !  "  he  seemed  to  say,  as  he 
looked  from  the  steward  to  the  head-forester.  Then,  that  he 
might  learn  whether  the  man's  character,  thoughts,  and  words 
were  such  as  his  face  and  stature  might  lead  you  to  expect,  he 
looked  full  at  Michaud,  saying — 

"  I  say  !  I  was  out  early  this  morning,  and  found  your  for- 
esters still  abed  !  " 

"At  what  time  !  "  asked  the  old  soldier  uneasily. 

"At  half-past  seven." 

Michaud  gave  his  general  an  almost  mischievous  glance. 

"And  through  which  gate  did  you  go  out  ?  "  asked  Michaud. 

"  The  Conches  gate.  The  keeper  in  his  shirt  took  a  look 
at  me  from  the  window,"  answered  Blondet. 

"Gaillard  had  just  gone  to  bed,  no  doubt,"  replied  Mi- 
chaud. "  When  you  told  me  that  you  had  gone  out  early,  I 
thought  that  you  were  up  before  sunrise,  and  if  my  forester 
had  gone  home  so  early,  he  must  have  been  ill ;  but  at  half- 
past  seven  he  would  be  going  to  bed.  We  are  up  all  night," 
Michaud  added,  after  a  pause,  by  way  of  answer  to  a  look  of 
astonishment  from  the  countess;  "but  this  vigilance  of  ours 
is  always  at  fault.  You  have  just  given  twenty-five  francs  to  a 
man  who  a  few  minutes  ago  was  quietly  helping  to  hide  the 
traces  of  a  theft  committed  on  your  property  this  very  morn- 
ing. In  fact,  as  soon  as  the  general  is  ready,  we  must  talk  it 
over,  for  something  must  be  done " 

"You  are  always  full  of  your  rights,  my  dear  Michaud,  and 
summumjus,  summa  injuria.  If  you  do  not  concede  a  point, 
you  will  make  trouble  for  yourself,"  said  Sibilet.  "  I  should 


THE  PEASANTRY.  91 

have  liked  you  to  hear  old  Fourchon  talking  just  now  when 
wine  had  loosened  his  tongue  a  little." 

"  He  frightened  me  !  "  exclaimed  the  countess. 

"  He  said  nothing  that  I  have  not  known  for  a  long  time," 
said  the  general. 

"  Oh  !  the  rascal  was  not  drunk,  he  played  a  part,  for  whose 
benefit?  Perhaps  you  know?"  Michaud  suggested,  looking 
steadily  at  Sibilet.  The  steward  reddened  under  his  gaze. 

"Oh!  the  trick!"  cried  Blondet,  looking  out  of  the 
corner  of  his  eye  at  the  abbe. 

"The  poor  people  suffer,"  said  the  countess;  "there  was 
some  truth  in  what  old  Fourchon  has  just  shrieked  at  us,  for 
it  cannot  be  said  that  he  spoke" 

"Madame,"  answered  Michaud,  "do  you  think  that  the 
Emperor's  soldiers  lay  in  roses  for  fourteen  years  ?  The  gen- 
eral is  a  count,  he  is  a  grand  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor, 
he  has  had  grants  of  land  made  him ;  do  I  show  any  jealousy 
of  him,  I  that  have  fought  as  he  has?  Have  I  any  wish  to 
cavil  at  his  fame,  to  steal  his  land,  or  to  refuse  him  the  honor 
due  his  rank?  The  peasant  ought  to  obey  as  the  soldier 
obeys ;  he  should  have  a  soldier's  loyalty,  his  respect  for  priv- 
ileges won  by  other  men,  and  try  to  rise  to  be  an  officer,  by 
fair  means,  by  his  own  exertions,  and  not  by  knavery.  The 
sword  and  the  ploughshare  are  twin  brothers.  And  in  the 
soldier's  lot  there  is  one  thing  that  the  peasant  has  not :  death 
hovering  overhead  at  every  hour." 

"  That  is  what  I  would  like  to  tell  them  from  the  pulpit," 
cried  the  Abbe  Brossette. 

"Concessions?"  the  head-forester  went  on,  in  answer  to 
Sibilet's  challenge.  "  I  would  concede  quite  ten  per  cent,  on 
the  gross  returns  from  the  Aigues,  but  the  way  things  go  now, 
the  general  loses  thirty  per  cent.;  and  if  Monsieur  Sibilet  is 
paid  so  much  per  cent,  on  the  receipts,  I  do  not  understand 
his  concessions,  for  he  pretty  benevolently  submits  to  a  loss 
of  ten  or  twelve  hundred  francs  a  year." 


92  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"My  dear  Monsieur  Michaud,"  retorted  Sibilet  in  a  surly 
tone,  "  I  have  told  Monsieur  le  Comte  that  I  would  rather 
lose  twelve  hundred  francs  than  my  life.  Think  it  seriously 
over;  I  keep  on  telling  you " 

"Zjfe/"  cried  the  countess;  "can  it  be  a  question  of  any 
one's  life?" 

"  We  ought  not  to  discuss  affairs  of  the  State  here,"  said 
the  general,  laughing.  "All  this  means,  madame,  that  Sibilet, 
in  his  quality  of  finance  minister,  is  timid  and  cowardly,  while 
my  minister  of  war  is  brave,  and,  like  his  general,  fears  noth- 
ing." 

"  Say  prudent,  Monsieur  le  Comte  ?  "  cried  Sibilet,  address- 
ing the  general. 

"  Come,  now,  are  we  really  surrounded  by  snares  set  for  us 
by  savages  like  the  heroes  of  Fenimore  Cooper's  novels  in  the 
backwoods  of  America  ?  " 

"  O,  but !  your  statesmanship,  gentlemen,  consists  in  under- 
standing how  to  govern  without  alarming  us  by  the  creaking 
of  the  machinery  of  government,"  said  Mme.  de  Mont- 
cornet. 

"Ah !  Madame  la  Comtesse,  perhaps  it  is  a  needful  thing 
that  you  should  know  what  one  of  your  pretty  caps  costs  in 
sweat  here,"  said  the  cur6. 

"  No,  for  then  I  might  very  well  do  without  them,  look 
respectfully  at  a  five-franc  piece,  and  grow  a  miser,  as  all 
country  people  do,  and  I  should  lose  too  much  by  it,"  said 
the  countess,  laughing.  "  Here,  my  dear  abbe,  give  me  your 
arm  ;  let  us  leave  the  general  with  his  two  ministers,  and  go 
to  the  Avonne  gate  to  see  Madame  Michaud.  I  have  not 
made  a  call  upon  her  since  I  came ;  it  is  time  to  look  after  my 
little  protege." 

And  the  pretty  woman  went  for  thick  shoes  and  a  hat ; 
Sibilet's  fears,  Mouche  and  Fourchon,  their  rags,  and  the  hate 
in  their  eyes,  were  already  forgotten. 

The  Abbe  Brossette  and  Blondet,  obedient  to  the  mistress 


THE  PEASANTRY.  93 

of  the  house,  followed  her  out  of  the  room,  and  waited  for  her 
on  the  terrace  in  front  of  the  castle. 

"What  do  you  think  of  all  this?"  Blondet  asked  his 
companion. 

"  I  am  a  pariah.  I  am  watched  by  spies  as  the  common 
enemy.  Every  moment  now  I  am  obliged  to  keep  the  ears 
and  eyes  of  prudence  wide  open,  or  I  should  fall  into  some 
of  the  snares  they  set  so  as  to  rid  themselves  of  me,"  said 
the  officiating  priest.  "  Between  ourselves,  it  has  come  to  this, 
I  ask  myself  whether  they  will  not  shoot  me  down " 

"  And  you  stay  on?  "  asked  Blondet. 

"  A  man  no  more  deserts  the  cause  of  God  than  the  cause 
of  the  Emperor!"  the  priest  answered,  with  a  simplicity 
which  impressed  Blondet.  He  grasped  the  priest's  hand 
cordially. 

"So  you  must  see,"  the  abbe  continued,  "that  I  am  not 
in  a  position  to  know  anything  of  all  that  is  brewing.  Still 
it  seems  to  me  that  the  people  here  have  '  a  spite  against '  the 
general,  as  they  say  in  Artois  and  Belgium." 

Something  must  here  be  said  about  the  cure  of  Blangy. 

The  abbe,  the  fourth  son  of  a  good  middle-class  family  in 
Autun,  was  a  clever  man,  carrying  his  head  high  on  the  score 
of  his  cloth.  Short  and  thin  though  he  was,  he  redeemed  the 
insignificance  of  his  appearance  by  that  air  of  hard-headedness 
which  sits  not  ill  on  a  Burgundian.  He  had  accepted  a  sub- 
ordinate position  through  devotion,  for  his  religious  conviction 
had  been  backed  by  political  conviction.  There  was  some- 
thing in  him  of  the  priest  of  other  times ;  he  had  a  passionate 
belief  in  the  church  and  his  order;  he  looked  at  things  as  a 
whole  ;  his  ambition  was  untainted  by  selfishness.  Serve  was 
his  motto,  to  serve  the  church  and  the  monarchy  at  the  point 
where  danger  threatens  most,  to  serve  in  the  ranks,  like 
the  soldier  who  feels  within  himself  that  his  desire  to  acquit 
himself  well  and  his  courage  must  bring  him,  sooner  or  later, 
a  general's  command.  He  faltered  in  none  of  his  vows  of 


94  THE  PEASANTRY. 

poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience,  acquitting  himself  in  these 
respects,  as  in  all  the  other  duties  of  his  position,  with  a  sim- 
plicity and  cheerfulness  that  is  the  unmistakable  sign  of  an 
upright  nature,  in  which  natural  instincts  make  for  right  as 
well  as  strong  and  earnest  religious  conviction. 

This  remarkable  churchman  saw  at  the  first  glance  that 
Blondet  was  attracted  to  the  countess,  saw  also  that  with  a 
daughter  of  the  house  of  Troisville,  and  a  man  of  letters,  who 
supported  the  Monarchy,  it  behooved  him  to  show  himself  a 
man  of  the  world,  for  the  dignity  of  the  cloth.  He  came  to 
make  a  fourth  at  whist  almost  every  evening.  Emile  Blondet 
was  able  to  appreciate  the  Abbe  Brossette,  and  paid  him 
marked  deference,  so  that  the  two  men  felt  attracted  to  each 
other;  for  every  clever  man  is  delighted  to  meet  with  an 
equal,  or,  if  you  prefer  it,  an  audience,  and  there  is  a  natural 
affinity  between  sword  and  scabbard. 

"But  now,  Monsieur  1'Abbe,  you  whose  earnestness  has 
placed  you  below  your  proper  level,  what,  in  your  opinion, 
has  brought  about  this  state  of  things?" 

"  I  do  not  like  to  give  you  platitudes  after  that  flattering 
parenthesis,"  said  the  abbe,  smiling.  "The  things  that  are 
happening  in  this  valley  are  happening  everywhere  in  France. 
It  is  all  the  outcome  of  the  hopes  and  tendencies  of  1789; 
they  have  filtered  down,  so  to  speak,  into  the  peasants'  minds. 
The  Revolution  affected  some  districts  much  more  deeply  than 
others ;  and  in  this  strip  of  Burgundy  lying  so  near  to  Paris, 
the  significance  of  that  movement  was  felt  to  be  the  triumph 
of  the  Gaul  over  the  Frank.  Historically,  the  peasants  are 
still  on  the  morrow  of  the  Jacquerie ;  their  defeat  sank  deeply 
into  their  minds.  The  facts  have  been  long  forgotten,  but  the 
idea  has  become  instinctive  in  them.  It  is  as  much  in  the 
blood  of  the  peasant  as  pride  of  birth  was  once  in  the  blood 
of  the  noble.  So  the  Revolution  of  1789  was  the  revenge  of 
the  vanquished.  The  peasants  have  entered  upon  the  owner- 
ship of  the  soil,  a  possession  forbidden  to  them  by  feudal  law 


THE  PEASANTRY.  95 

for  twelve  hundred  years.  Hence  their  love  of  the  land ;  they 
divide  it  up  among  themselves  till  a  single  furrow  is  cut  in 
half.  It  not  seldom  happens  that  they  pay  no  taxes,  for  the 
property  is  so  exceedingly  small  that  it  will  not  cover  the  costs 
of  prosecution  for  arrears." 

"  Their  wrong-headedness,  their  suspiciousness,  if  you  will," 
Blondet  broke  in  upon  the  abbe,  "  in  this  respect  is  so  great 
that  in  a  thousand  cantons  out  of  three  thousand  in  France,  it 
is  impossible  for  a  rich  man  to  buy  land  of  a  peasant.  They 
will  let  or  sell  their  bits  of  ground  among  themselves,  but  they 
will  not  give  it  up  to  a  well-to-do  farmer  on  any  consideration 
whatever.  The  more  the  great  landowner  offers,  the  more 
their  vague  suspicions  increase.  Expropriation  is  the  only 
means  by  which  the  peasant's  holdings  can  be  brought  under 
the  common  law  of  the  land.  Plenty  of  people  have  noticed 
this  fact,  but  they  see  no  reason  for  it." 

"This  is  the  reason,"  said  the  Abbe  Brossette,  rightly  con- 
sidering that  with  Blondet  a  pause  was  a  sort  of  interrogation. 
"  Twelve  centuries  are  as  nothing  to  a  caste  which  has  never 
been  diverted  from  its  principal  idea  by  the  historical  spec- 
tacle of  civilization,  a  caste  which  still  proudly  wears  the 
noble's  broad-brimmed  silk-bound  hat  since  the  day  when  it  fell 
out  of  fashion  and  was  abandoned  to  the  peasants.  The  enthu- 
siasm in  the  depths  of  the  hearts  of  the  people,  which  centred 
itself  passionately  on  the  figure  of  Napoleon  (who  never  under- 
stood the  secret  of  it  as  thoroughly  as  he  imagined),  sprang 
solely  from  this  idea,  which  may  perhaps  explain  the  portent 
of  his  return  in  1815 — Napoleon,  bound  to  the  people  by  a 
million  of  common  soldiers  (first  and  last),  is  even  yet,  in 
their  eyes,  the  king  of  the  people,  sprung  from  the  loins  of  the 
Revolution,  the  man  who  confirmed  them  in  the  possession  of 
the  national  lands.  The  oil  at  his  coronation  was  saturated 
with  this  idea " 

"An  idea  which  the  year  1814  disturbed  with  unfortunate 
results,  an  idea  which  the  Monarchy  should  regard  as  sacred," 


96  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Blondet  said  quickly;  "for  the  people  may  find  beside  the 
throne  a  prince  to  whom  his  father  left  the  head  of  Louis 
XVI.  as  part  of  his  inheritance." 

"  Hush,  here  comes  the  countess,"  said  the  Abbe  Brossette. 
"  Fourchon  frightened  her,  and  we  must  keep  her  here  in  the 
interests  of  religion,  of  the  throne,  nay,  of  the  country 
itself." 

Michaud,  as  head -forester,  had  doubtless  come  to  report  the 
injury  done  to  Vatel's  eyes.  But  before  reporting  the  delib- 
erations of  the  Council  of  State,  the  reader  must  be  put  in 
possession  of  a  sequence  of  facts,  a  concise  account  of  the  cir- 
cumstances under  which  the  general  bought  the  Aigues,  and  of 
the  weighty  reasons  which  determined  Sibilet's  appointment 
to  the  stewardship  of  the  fine  estate,  together  with  an  explana- 
tion of  Michaud's  installation  as  head-forester ;  in  short,  of  all 
the  antecedent  facts  that  had  brought  people's  minds  into 
their  present  attitude,  and  given  rise  to  the  fears  expressed  by 
Sibilet. 

There  will  be  a  farther  advantage  in  this  rapid  sketch,  in 
that  it  will  introduce  several  of  the  principal  actors  of  the 
drama,  give  an  outline  of  their  interests,  and  set  forth  the 
dangers  of  the  Comte  de  Montcornet's  position. 

VI. 

A  TALE  OF  ROBBERS. 

In  1791,  or  thereabouts,  Mile.  Laguerre  came  on  a  visit  to 
her  country  house,  and  accepted  as  her  new  agent  the  son  of 
an  ex-steward  of  the  neighboring  manor  of  Soulanges. 

The  little  town  of  Soulanges  at  this  day  is  simply  the  mar- 
ket-town of  the  district,  though  it  was  once  the  capital  of  a 
considerable  county  in  the  days  when  the  House  of  Burgundy 
waged  war  against  the  House  of  France.  Ville-aux-Fayes, 
now  the  seat  of  the  sub-prefecture,  was  a  mere  petty  fief  in 


THE  PEASANTRY.  97 

those  days,  a  dependency  of  Soulanges,  like  the  Aigues,  Ron- 
querolles,  Cerneux,  Conches,  and  fifteen  hamlets  beside ;  but 
the  Soulanges  still  bear  a  count's  coronet,  while  the  Ronque- 
rolles  of  to-day  styles  himself  "  Marquis,"  thanks  to  the  in- 
trigues of  a  court  which  raised  the  son  of  a  Captain  du  Plessis 
to  a  dukedom  over  the  heads  of  the  first  families  of  the  Con- 
quest. Which  shows  that  towns,  like  families,  have  their  vicis- 
situdes. 

The  ex-steward's  son,  a  penniless  bachelor,  succeeded  an 
agent  enriched  by  the  spoils  of  thirty  years  of  office.  The 
agent  had  decided  that  a  third  share  in  the  firm  of  Minoret 
would  suit  him  better  than  the  stewardship  of  the  Aigues. 
The  future  victualer  had  recommended  as  his  successor  a 
young  man  who  had  been  his  responsible  assistant  for  five 
years.  Francois  Gaubertin  should  cover  his  retreat,  and,  in- 
deed, his  pupil  undertook  (out  of  gratitude  for  his  training) 
to  obtain  the  late  agent's  discharge  from  Mile.  Laguerre, 
when  he  saw  how  the  lady  went  in  deadly  terror  of  the  Revo- 
lution. 

Gaubertin  senior,  ex-steward  of  the  manor  of  Soulanges 
and  public  accuser  of  the  department,  took  the  timorous  ope- 
ratic singer  under  his  protection.  She  was  "  suspect  "  on  the 
face  of  it,  after  her  relations  with  the  aristocracy ;  so  the  local 
Fouquier-Tinville  got  up  a  little  comedy,  an  explosion  of  feel- 
ing against  the  stage-queen,  in  order  to  give  his  son  a  chance 
to  play  the  part  of  deliverer.  By  these  means,  the  young 
man  obtained  his  predecessor's  discharge,  and  citizeness  La- 
guerre made  Francois  Gaubertin  her  prime  minister,  partly 
out  of  gratitude,  partly  from  policy. 

The  future  victualer  of  the  armies  of  the  Republic  had  not 
spoiled  mademoiselle.  He  annually  remitted  about  thirty 
thousand  livres  to  her  in  Paris,  whereas  the  Aigues  must  have 
brought  in  forty  thousand  at  the  very  least.  When,  there- 
fore, Francois  Gaubertin  promised  her  thirty-six  thousand 
francs,  the  ignorant  opera-girl  was  amazed. 
7 


98  THE  PEASANTRY. 

If  the  fortune  subsequently  amassed  by  Francois  Gaubertin 
is  to  be  justified  before  the  tribunal  of  probability,  its  history 
must  be  traced  from  the  beginning.  First  of  all,  young 
Gaubertin  obtained  the  post  of  mayor  of  Blangy  through  his 
father's  influence ;  and  thenceforward,  in  spite  of  the  law,  he 
demanded  that  all  payments  should  be  made  to  him  in  coin. 
It  was  in  his  power  to  strike  down  any  one  by  the  ruinous 
requisitions  of  the  Republic,  and  he  used  his  power  to  "ter- 
rorize "  his  debtors  (to  use  the  language  of  the  time).  Then 
the  steward  punctually  remitted  his  mistress1  dues  in  assignats,* 
so  long  as  assignats  were  legal  tender.  If  the  finances  of  the 
country  were  the  worse  for  the  paper  currency,  at  any  rate  it 
laid  the  foundation  of  many  a  private  fortune. 

In  three  years,  between  1792  and  1795,  young  Gaubertin 
made  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs  out  of  the  Aigues, 
and  speculated  on  the  Paris  money  market.  Mile.  Laguerre, 
embarrassed  with  her  assignats,  was  obliged  to  coin  money 
with  her  diamonds,  hitherto  useless.  She  sent  them  to  Gau- 
bertin, who  sold  them  for  her,  and  punctually  remitted  the 
money  in  coin.  Mile.  Laguerre  was  so  much  touched  by  this 
piece  of  loyalty  that  from  that  time  forth  her  belief  in  Gau- 
bertin was  as  firm  as  her  belief  in  Piccini. 

In  1796,  at  the  time  of  his  marriage  with  citizeness  Isaure 
Mouchon  (a  daughter  of  one  of  his  father's  old  friends  of  the 
Convention),  young  Gaubertin  possessed  three  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  francs  in  coin  ;  and,  as  the  Directory  seemed  to 
him  to  be  likely  to  last,  he  determined  that  Mile.  Laguerre 
should  pass  the  accounts  of  his  five  years'  stewardship  before 
he  married,  finding  an  excuse  in  that  event  in  his  life  for  the 
request. 

"I  shall  be  the  father  of  a  family,"  he  said;  "you  know 
the  sort  of  character  an  agent  gets;  my  father-in-law  is  a  Re- 
publican of  Roman  probity,  and  a  man  of  influence  moreover ; 
I  should  like  to  show  him  that  I  am  not  unworthy  of  him." 
*  Paper  money  of  the  Republic. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  99 

Mile.  Laguerre  expressed  her  satisfaction  with  Gaubertin's 
accounts  in  the  most  flattering  terms. 

At  first  the  steward  tried  to  check  the  peasants'  depreda- 
tions, partly  to  inspire  confidence  in  Mile.  Laguerre,  partly 
because  he  feared  (and  not  without  reason)  that  the  returns 
would  suffer,  and  that  there  would  be  a  serious  falling  off  in 
the  timber  merchant's  tips.  But  by  that  time  the  sovereign 
people  had  learned  to  make  pretty  free  everywhere ;  and  the 
lady  of  the  manor,  beholding  her  kings  at  such  close  quarters, 
felt  somewhat  overawed  by  majesty,  and  signified  to  her  Riche- 
lieu that,  before  all  things,  she  most  particularly  desired  to  die 
in  peace.  The  prima  donna's  income  was  so  far  too  large  for 
her  needs  that  she  suffered  the  most  disastrous  precedents. 
For  instance,  rather  than  take  law  proceedings,  she  allowed 
her  neighbors  to  encroach  upon  her  proprietary  rights.  She 
never  looked  beyond  the  high  walls  of  her  park ;  she  knew 
that  nothing  would  pass  them  to  trouble  her  felicity ;  she 
wished  for  nothing  but  a  quiet  life,  like  the  true  philosopher 
that  she  was.  What  were  a  few  thousand,  livres  of  income, 
more  or  less,  or  rebates  on  sales  of  wood  demanded  by  the 
merchants,  on  the  ground  that  the  peasants  had  spoiled  the 
trees,  in  the  eyes  of  a  thriftless,  reckless  opera-girl,  whose  in- 
come of  a  hundred  thousand  francs  had  cost  her  nothing  but 
pleasure,  who  had  just  submitted  without  a  murmur  to  lose 
forty  out  of  sixty  thousand  francs  a  year? 

"Eh!"  cried  she,  with  the  easy  good-nature  of  a  quean 
of  the  bygone  eighteenth  century,  "everyone  must  live,  even 
the  Republic!  " 

Mile.  Cochet,  terrible  power,  her  woman  and  female  vizier, 
had  tried  to  open  her  mistress'  eyes  when  she  saw  what  an 
ascendency  Gaubertin  had  gained  over  "my  lady,"  as  he 
called  her  from  the  first,  in  spite  of  revolutionary  laws  of 
equality;  but  Gaubertin  (in  his  turn)  opened  the  waiting- 
maid's  eyes  by  producing  a  document  purporting  to  be  a  "  de- 


100  THE  PEASANTRY. 

nunciation"  sent  to  his  father,  the  public  accuser,  wherein 
Mile.  Cochet  was  vehemently  accused  of  being  in  correspond- 
ence with  Pitt  and  Cobourg. 

Thenceforward  the  two  powers  ruled  with  divided  sway, 
but  a  la  Montgomery — under  the  rose.  La  Cochet  praised 
Gaubertin  to  Mile.  Laguerre,  just  as  Gaubertin  extolled  La 
Cochet  to  his  mistress.  Moreover,  the  woman  knew  that  her 
nest  was  feathered,  and  that  she  could  sleep  securely  on  her 
mistress'  legacy  of  sixty  thousand  francs.  Madame  was  so 
used  to  La  Cochet  that  she  could  not  do  without  her.  The 
maid  knew  all  the  secrets  of  "  dear  mistress'  "  toilet ;  she  had 
the  knack  of  sending  "  dear  mistress"  to  sleep  of  an  evening 
with  endless  stories,  and  could  awaken  her  in  the  morning 
with  flattering  words.  In  fact,  La  Cochet  never  saw  any 
change  in  "dear  mistress"  until  the  day  of  her  death,  and 
when  "dear  mistress"  lay  in  her  coffin,  probably  thought 
that  she  looked  better  than  ever. 

The  annual  gains  made  by  this  pair,  together  with  their 
salaries  and  perquisites,  grew  to  be  so  considerable  that  the 
most  affectionate  relatives  could  not  have  been  more  attached 
than  they  to  the  excellent  creature  their  mistress.  Does  any 
one  yet  know  how  well  a  knave  can  lull  his  dupe  ?  No  mother 
is  so  tender  or  so  thoughtful  for  an  idolized  daughter  as  a 
practitioner  of  tartufferie  (hypocrisy)  for  his  milch  cow. 
What  limits  are  there  to  the  success  of  Tartufe  played  on 
many  a  private  stage?  What  is  friendship  in  comparison? 
Moliere  died  all  too  soon,  he  should  have  shown  us  the  sequel 
— Orgon's  despair,  Orgon  bored  by  his  family  and  worried 
by  his  children,  Orgon  regretting  Tartufe  and  his  flatteries, 
muttering  to  himself,  "  Those  were  the  good  times  !  " 

During  the  last  eight  years  of  Mile.  Laguerre's  life  she  only 
received  thirty  out  of  the  fifty  thousand  francs  brought  in  by 
the  Aigues.  Gaubertin's  reign  ended  in  much  the  same  way 
as  the  reign  of  his  predecessor,  though  rents  were  higher  and 


THE   PEASANTRY.  101 

prices  bad  risen  notably  between  1791  and  1815,  and  Mile. 
Laguerre's  estate  increased  by  continued  purchases.  But  it 
was  part  of  Gaubertin's  plan  to  inherit  the  estate  on  his  mis- 
tress' approaching  death,  and  therefore  he  was  obliged  to  in- 
vent and  maintain  a  chronic  state  of  bad  times.  La  Cochet, 
initiated  into  this  scheme,  was  to  share  in  the  benefits. 

Now  the  stage-queen  in  exile  possessed  a  supplementary  in- 
come of  twenty  thousand  livres  from  investments  in  consoli- 
dated government  stock  (note  how  admirably  the  language  of 
politicians  adapts  itself  to  the  humors  of  politics),  and  scarcely 
spent  the  aforesaid  twenty  thousand  francs  in  a  year,  but  she 
was  amazed  at  the  continual  purchases  of  land  made  by  the 
steward  out  of  the  surplus  funds  at  his  disposal.  Never  in  her 
life  before  had  she  lived  within  her  income ;  and  now  that  her 
needs  had  shrunk  with  age,  she  mistook  the  symptoms,  and 
credited  Gaubertin  and  La  Cochet  with  honesty. 

"  Two  treasures  !  "  she  assured  every  one  who  came  to  see 
her. 

Gaubertin,  moreover,  was  careful  of  appearances ;  his  ac- 
counts looked  straightforward.  All  the  rents  were  duly  posted 
in  the  ledger ;  anything  that  could  not  fail  to  strike  the  ac- 
tress' slender  intelligence  was  definite,  accurate,  and  precise, 
so  far  as  figures  went.  But  the  steward  took  a  percentage  on 
all  outgoing  expenses,  bargains  about  to  be  concluded,  ex- 
ploitations, contracts  for  repairs,  and  lawsuits  which  he  de- 
vised. His  mistress  never  looked  into  these  details,  and  so  it 
not  seldom  happened  that  an  arrangement  was  made  by  which 
the  buyers  paid  double  the  prices  entered,  and  were  bound 
over  to  silence  by  receiving  a  share  of  the  spoils.  This  easi- 
ness on  Gaubertin's  part  won  general  popularity  for  himself, 
and  every  one  praised  his  mistress;  for,  beside  being  fleeced 
all  round,  she  gave  away  a  great  deal  of  money. 

"  God  preserve  her,  dear  lady  !  "  was  the  cry. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mile.  Laguerre  gave  directly  or  in- 
directly to  every  one  that  asked  of  her.  As  a  sort  of  Nemesis 


102  THE  PEASANTRY. 

of  youth,  the  opera  singer  was  plundered  in  her  age,  so  deftly 
and  so  systematically  that  her  pillagers  kept  within  certain 
bounds,  lest  her  eyes  should  be  opened  to  all  that  went  on, 
and  she  should  be  frightened  into  selling  the  Aigues  and  going 
back  to  Paris. 

It  was  (alas  !)  in  the  interest  of  such  plunderers  as  these  that 
Paul-Louis  Courier  was  murdered.  He  had  made  the  blunder 
of  announcing  beforehand  that  he  meant  to  take  his  wife  away 
and  sell  his  estate,  on  which  many  a  Tourangeau  Tonsard  was 
living.  With  this  fear  before  their  eyes,  the  marauders  at  the 
Aigues  only  cut  down  young  trees  when  driven  to  extremities, 
when,  for  instance,  there  were  no  branches  left  which  they 
could  reach  with  a  bill-hook  tied  to  a  pole.  For  the  sake  of 
their  own  ill-gotten  gains,  they  did  not  go  out  of  their  way  to 
do  damage ;  and  yet,  during  the  last  years  of  Mile.  Laguerre's 
life,  the  abuse  of  wood-cutting  reached  most  scandalous 
proportions.  On  certain  moonlit  nights  no  less  than  two 
hundred  faggots  would  be  bound  in  the  woods ;  and  as  for 
gleaning  in  fields  and  vineyards,  the  Aigues  lost  (as  Sibilet 
had  just  pointed  out)  about  one-fourth  of  its  produce  in  such 
ways. 

Mile.  Laguerre  forbade  La  Cochet  to  marry  during  her  own 
lifetime,  a  piece  of  selfishness  where  dependents  are  concerned 
that  may  be  remarked  all  the  world  over,  and  in  its  absurdity 
about  on  a  par  with  the  mania  of  those  who  clutch  till  their 
latest  sigh  at  possessions  which  have  long  ceased  to  contribute 
to  their  enjoyment,  at  imminent  risk  of  being  poisoned  by 
their  impatient  next-of-kin.  So  three  weeks  after  Mile.  La- 
guerre was  laid  in  the  earth,  Mile.  Cochet  married  a  police 
sergeant  at  Soulanges,  Soudry  by  name,  a  fine-looking  man  of 
forty-two,  who  had  come  to  the  Aigues  almost  every  day  to 
see  her  since  the  creation  of  the  police  force  in  1800,  and 
dined  at  least  four  days  a  week  with  Gaubertin  and  La 
Cochet. 

All  through  madame's  life  she  had  had  her  meals  served  apart 


THE  PEASANTRY.  103 

and  alone  when  she  had  no  visitors.  In  spite  of  the  familiar 
terms  on  which  she  lived  with  La  Cochet  and  Gaubertin, 
neither  of  them  was  permitted  to  sit  at  table  with  the  first 
pupil  of  the  Academic  royale  de  musique  et  de  danse  (Royal 
Academy  of  Music  and  Dancing),  and  to  the  very  end  she 
preserved  her  etiquette,  her  manner  of  dress,  her  rouge,  her 
high-heeled  pantofles,  her  carriage  and  servants,  and  divinity 
of  the  goddess.  A  goddess  on  the  stage,  a  goddess  of  the 
town,  though  buried  away  in  the  country  she  was  a  goddess 
still ;  her  memory  is  held  in  veneration  there,  dividing  the 
honors  very  evenly  with  the  court  of  Louis  XVI.  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  "  best  society  "  of  Soulanges. 

The  aforesaid  Soudry,  who  paid  court  to  La  Cochet  from 
the  very  first,  was  the  owner  of  the  nicest  house  in  Soulanges 
and  about  six  thousand  francs,  with  a  prospect  of  a  retiring 
pension  of  four  hundred  francs.  La  Cochet,  now  Mme.  Sou- 
dry,  was  a  person  of  no  little  consequence  in  Soulanges.  The 
retired  lady's-maid  was  generally  supposed  to  possess  one  of 
the  largest  fortunes  in  the  little  town  of  some  twelve  hundred 
inhabitants ;  but  she  never  said  a  word  about  her  savings, 
which  were  placed,  together  with  Gaubertin's  capital,  in  the 
hands  of  a  wine  merchant's  commission  agent  in  Paris,  one 
Leclercq,  who  belonged  to  that  part  of  the  country,  Gauber- 
tin being  his  sleeping  partner. 

Great  was  the  general  astonishment  when  M.  and  Mme. 
Soudry,  by  their  marriage-contract,  legitimized  a  natural  son 
of  the  bridegroom  ;  to  this  boy,  therefore,  Mme.  Soudry's 
fortune  would  in  due  course  descend.  On  the  day  when  he 
officially  received  a  mother,  he  had  just  finished  his  law  stud- 
ies, and  proposed  to  keep  his  terms  so  as  to  become  a  magis- 
trate. 

It  is  almost  superfluous  to  add  that  there  was  a  firm  friend- 
ship between  the  Gaubertins  and  the  Soudrys,  a  friendship 
which  had  its  source  in  a  mutual  intelligence  of  twenty  years' 
standing.  Both  sides  were  in  duty  bound  till  the  end  of  their 


104  THE  PEASANTRY. 

days  to  give  each  other  out  "to  Rome  and  the  rest  of  the 
world"  for  the  salt  of  the  earth.  This  interest,  based  on  a 
knowledge  on  either  side  of  secret  stains  on  the  white  gar- 
ment of  conscience,  is  one  of  the  most  indissoluble  of  all 
bonds.  You  who  read  this  social  drama  are  so  sure  of  this, 
that,  given  the  phenomenon  of  a  lasting  devotion  which  puts 
your  egoism  to  the  blush,  you  will  say  of  the  pair  "  that  those 
two  must  have  committed  some  crime  together." 

After  twenty-five  years  of  stewardship,  the  steward  found 
that  he  could  command  six  hundred  thousand  francs  in  coin, 
and  La  Cochet  possessed  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand. Dexterous  and  continual  changes  of  investment  did  not 
a  little  to  swell  the  capital  deposited  with  the  firm  of  Leclercq 
&  Company  on  the  Quai  de  Bethune  in  the  He  Saint-Louis 
(rivals  of  the  famous  house  of  Grandet),  and  helped  to  build 
up  fortunes  for  the  commission  agent  and  Gaubertin.  After 
Mile.  Laguerre's  death,  Leclercq,  the  head  of  the  firm  on  the 
Quai  de  Bethune,  asked  for  the  steward's  eldest  daughter, 
Jenny,  in  marriage,  and  then  it  was  that  Gaubertin  flattered 
himself  that  he  saw  how  to  make  himself  master  of  the  Aigues. 
Twelve  years  previously  a  notary  had  set  up  at  Soulanges 
through  Gaubertin's  influence,  and  in  Maitre  Lupin's  office 
the  plot  was  hatched. 

Lupin,  a  son  of  the  Comte  de  Soulanges'  late  agent,  had 
lent  himself  to  all  the  various  manoeuvres,  unhappily  too  com- 
mon in  out-of-the-way  country  places,  by  which  important 
pieces  of  property  change  hands  in  a  hole-and-corner  sort  of 
way  (to  use  a  popular  expression — such  methods,  for  example, 
as  under- valuations  of  real  estate,  or  putting  up  property  for 
sale  and  fixing  the  reserve  bid  at  one-half  the  actual  value,  or 
distributing  unauthorized  placards.  Lately,  so  it  is  said,  he 
has  formed  a  society  in  Paris  for  blackmailing  weavers  of  such 
schemes  with  threats  of  running  prices  up  against  them ;  but 
in  1 8 1 6  the  scorching  glare  of  publicity,  in  which  we  live  to- 
day, had  not  yet  been  turned  on  France,  so  those  in  the  plot 


THE  PEASANTRY.  105 

might  fairly  reckon  upon  dividing  the  Aigues  among  them. 
It  was  a  job  arranged  by  La  Cochet,  the  notary,  and  Gauber- 
tin ;  the  latter  reserving  in  secret  his  own  further  scheme  of 
buying  out  his  confederates  so  soon  as  the  land  should  be  pur- 
chased in  his  name.  Lupin  chose  the  attorney,  whom  he  in- 
structed to  make  application  to  the  court  for  leave  to  sell. 
This  man  had  agreed  to  make  over  his  practice  to  Gaubertin's 
son,  and  was  waiting  to  receive  payment,  so  that  he  had  an 
interest  in  the  spoliation,  if  indeed  those  eleven  laborers  in 
Picardy,  who  came  in  for  such  an  unexpected  windfall,  could 
regard  themselves  as  despoiled. 

But  on  the  eve  of  the  auction,  at  the  moment  when  all  con- 
cerned thought  themselves  secure  of  doubling  their  fortunes  at 
a  stroke,  there  came  down  a  solicitor  from  Paris,  who  went  to 
a  solicitor  at  Ville-aux-Fayes  (an  old  clerk  of  his,  as  it  turned 
out),  and  the  former  empowered  the  latter  to  buy  the  Aigues, 
which  he  accordingly  did,  for  eleven  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand francs.  Gaubertin  was  convinced  that  Soudry  was  at 
the  bottom  of  this,  and  Lupin  and  Soudry  were  equally  sure 
that  Gaubertin  had  outwitted  them  both ;  but  when  the  pur- 
chaser's name  was  declared,  a  reconciliation  took  place. 

The  country  solicitor  had  his  own  suspicions  of  the  plans 
formed  by  Gaubertin,  Lupin,  and  Soudry,  but  he  was  very 
careful  not  to  enlighten  his  sometime  employer,  and  for  the 
following  excellent  reason  :  Unless  the  new-comer  kept  his 
own  counsel,  the  ministerial  official  would  have  the  country 
made  too  hot  to  hold  him.  The  wisdom  of  his  taciturnity 
was,  moreover,  amply  justified  by  the  subsequent  course  of 
events  to  be  related  in  this  Study.  If  the  provincial  is  crafty, 
it  is  in  self-defense  ;  his  excuse  lies  in  the  danger  of  a  position 
admirably  depicted  by  the  popular  adage,  "  One  must  howl 
with  the  wolves,"  a  doctrine  which  finds  its  concrete  expres- 
sion in  the  character  of  Philinte. 

So  when  General  de  Montcornet  took   possession  of  the 


-N 


106  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Aigues,  Gaubertin  was  not  rich  enough  to  resign  his  post.  If 
his  eldest  daughter  was  to  marry  the  rich  banker  of  the  En- 
trepot, her  portion  of  two  hundred  thousand  francs  must  be 
forthcoming ;  then  there  was  his  son's  practice,  which  would 
cost  thirty  thousand  francs  ;  and  out  of  the  three  hundred  and 
seventy  thousand  which  still  remained  to  him,  he  must  sooner 
or  later  find  a  dowry  for  his  youngest  girl  Elise,  whom,  he 
hoped,  would  make  a  match  as  brilliant  as  that  of  her  elder 
sister.  The  steward  determined  to  study  Montcornet's  char- 
acter, possibly  he  might  contrive  to  disgust  the  general  with 
the  place,  and  to  reap  the  benefit  of  his  abortive  schemes. 

With  the  peculiar  shrewdness  of  those  who  have  made  their 
way  by  cunning,  Gaubertin  put  faith  in  a  not  ill-grounded  be- 
lief in  a  general  resemblance  between  the  character  of  an  old 
soldier  and  an  aged  actress.  An  opera  girl,  and  one  of  Na- 
poleon'sold  generals — what  could  you  expect  of  either  but  the 
same  thriftlessness,  the  same  careless  ways?  To  the  adven- 
turess and  to  the  soldier  fortune  comes  capriciously  and 
through  peril.  There  may  be  astute,  shrewd,  and  politic  mili- 
tary men,  but  they  surely  are  not  the  ordinary  stamp.  The 
typical  soldier  is  supposed  to  be  simple  and  unsuspecting,  a 
child  in  matters  of  business,  and  but  little  fitted  to  cope  with 
the  thousand  and  one  details  of  the  management  of  a  great 
estate,  and  this  more  particularly  in  the  case  of  such  a  fire-eater 
as  Montcornet.  Gaubertin  flattered  himself  that  he  could 
take  and  hold  the  general  in  the  net  in  which  Mile.  Laguerre 
had  ended  her  days.  But  it  so  happened  that,  in  the  time  of 
the  Emperor,  Montcornet  had  himself  been  in  very  much  such 
a  position  in  Pomerania  as  Gaubertin  held  at  the  Aigues,  and 
the  general  had  had  practical  experience  of  the  opportunities 
of  a  stewardship. 

When  the  old  Cuirassier  took  to  "  planting  cabbages,"  to 
use  the  expression  of  the  first  Due  cle  Baron,  he  wanted  some 
occupation  to  divert  his  mind  from  his  fall.  Although  he 
had  carried  his  corps  over  to  the  Bourbons,  his  share  of  a 


THE  PEASANTRY.  107 

service  performed  by  several  generals,  and  christened  the 
"  Disbanding  of  the  Army  of  the  Loire,"  could  not  redeem 
his  blunder  of  the  following  year,  when  Montcornet  had  fol- 
lowed the  Man  of  the  Hundred  Days  to  his  last  field  of  battle 
at  Waterloo.  During  the  occupation  of  the  Allies  it  was  im- 
possible for  the  peer  of  1815  to  remain  on  the  muster-roll  of 
the  army,  and  still  more  impossible  to  retain  his  seat  at  the 
Luxembourg.  So  Montcornet  acted  on  the  advice  of  the  old 
marshal  in  disgrace,  and  went  to  cultivate  carrots  in  sober 
earnest.  The  general  was  not  wanting  in  the  shrewdness  of 
an  old  war-wolf.  During  the  very  first  days  spent  in  investi- 
gating his  possessions,  he  soon  found  out  the  sort  of  man  that 
he  had  to  do  with  in  Gaubertin;  for  the  typical  steward  under 
the  old  noblesse  was  a  variety  of  rogue  familiar  to  almost  all 
of  Napoleon's  mushroom  nobility  of  dukes  and  marshals 
sprung  from  beds  of  straw. 

The  shrewd  old  Cuirassier  likewise  saw  how  useful  Gauber- 
tin's  profound  experience  of  agricultural  administration  and 
the  manners  and  customs  of  misdemeanants  would  be  to  him ; 
so  he  appeared  to  be  a  continuation  of  Mile.  Laguerre,  with  an 
assumption  of  carelessness  which  deceived  the  steward.  The 
period  of  ineptitude  lasted  until  the  general  had  time  to  find 
out  the  strong  and  weak  points  of  the  Aigues,  the  ins  and  outs 
of  the  receipts,  the  manner  in  which  the  rents  were  collected, 
the  necessary  improvements  and  economies,  and  the  ways  in 
which  he  was  robbed. 

Then  one  fine  day,  catching  Gaubertin  with  his  hand  in 
the  bag  (to  use  the  time-honored  expression),  the  general  took 
occasion  to  fly  into  one  of  the  fearful  passions  to  which  the 
conquering  hero  is  peculiarly  subject.  Therein  he  committed 
a  capital  error.  It  was  one  of  those  blunders  which  would 
have  shaken  the  future  of  a  man  who  had  not  his  great  wealth 
or  firmness  of  purpose,  and  there,  in  fact,  was  the  origin  of 
the  whole  tissue  of  disasters,  great  and  small,  with  which  this 
story  teems.  Montcornet  had  been  trained  in  the  Imperial 


108  THE  PEASANTRY. 

school,  he  slashed  his  way  through  difficulties,  and  deep  was 
his  scorn  of  civilians.  Montcornet  could  not  see  that  there 
was  any  need  to  mince  matters  when  a  rascally  steward  was  to 
be  sent  about  his  business.  The  general  knew  nothing  of 
civil  life  and  its  countless  precautions,  his  temper  was  not  im- 
proved by  his  disgrace,  so  he  inflicted  a  deep  mortification  on 
Gaubertin,  who,  moreover,  drew  it  upon  himself  by  a  cynical 
retort  that  infuriated  the  general. 

" So  you  are  living  on  my  land? "  the  count  had  remarked 
with  grim  hilarity. 

"  Did  you  suppose  that  I  could  live  on  what  falls  from 
heaven?"  Gaubertin  retorted  with  a  grin. 

"Get  out  of  this,  you  scamp,  or  I'll  make  you!  "  roared 
the  general,  accompanying  the  words  with  several  cuts  of  a 
horsewhip,  though  the  steward  always  denied  a  thrashing 
that  no  one  witnessed. 

"I  shall  not  go  until  I  have  my  discharge,"  Gaubertin 
exclaimed  coolly,  as  soon  as  he  had  put  a  distance  between 
himself  and  the  truculent  Cuirassier. 

"We  shall  see  what  they  think  of  you  in  a  court  of  law," 
returned  Montcornet,  with  a  shrug. 

At  the  threat  of  prosecution,  Gaubertin  looked  the  count  in 
the  face  and  smiled ;  it  was  a  smile  of  peculiar  efficacy,  for 
the  general's  arm  dropped  to  his  side  as  if  the  sinews  had 
been  cut.  Let  us  go  into  the  explanation  of  that  smile. 

Two  years  ago  Gaubertin's  brother-in-law  Gendrin  had 
been  appointed  to  the  presidency  of  the  Court  of  First  In- 
stance, where  he  had  long  been  a  judge.  He  owed  the 
appointment  to  the  Comte  de  Soulanges,  who  had  been  made 
a  peer  of  France  in  1814,  and  had  kept  stanch  to  the  Bour- 
bons during  the  Hundred  Days.  M.  de  Soulanges  had  asked 
the  keeper  of  the  seals  to  nominate  Gendrin.  Such  kinship 
as  this  gave  Gaubertin  a  certain  importance  in  the  country. 
A  president  of  a  court  of  first  instance  in  a  small  town  is, 
relatively  speaking,  a  much  greater  person  than  the  president 


THE   PEASANTRY.  109 

of  a  court-royal  in  a  city  where  there  are  rival  luminaries  in 
the  shape  of  the  commander,  the  bishop,  prefect,  and  receiver- 
general  ;  a  simple  president  of  a  court  of  first  instance  shines 
alone,  for  neither  the  public  prosecutor  nor  the  sub-prefect  is 
a  permanent  official.  Young  Soudry  and  Gaubertin's  son 
had  been  friends  as  lads  at  the  Aigues,  and  afterward  in  Paris, 
and  now  young  Soudry  had  just  received  the  appointment 
of  public-prosecutor's  substitute  in  the  chief  town  of  the 
department. 

Soudry  senior,  once  a  quartermaster  in  an  artillery  regiment, 
had  been  wounded  in  an  action  in  defense  of  M.  de  Sou- 
langes,  then  adjutant-general.  Since  those  days  the  gend- 
armerie had  been  established,  and  M.  de  Soulanges  (now  a 
colonel)  asked  for  a  police-sergeant's  post  for  the  man  who  had 
saved  his  life,  and,  at  a  later  time,  obtained  a  post  for  Soudry's 
son.  And  finally,  when  Mile.  Gaubertin's  marriage  had  been 
definitely  arranged  at  the  Quai  de  Bethune,  the  unjust  steward 
felt  that  he  had  a  stronger  position  in  the  district  than  an 
unattached  lieutenant-general. 

If  this  story  were  nothing  but  a  chronicle  of  the  rupture 
between  the  general  and  his  steward,  it  would  even  then  be 
well  worth  serious  attention,  as  a  guide  to  the  conduct  of  life. 
Those  who  can  profit  by  the  perusal  of  Machiavelli's  treatise 
will  find  it  demonstrated  therein  that,  in  dealing  with  human 
nature,  it  is  a  prudent  course  to  refrain  from  menaces,  to  pro- 
ceed to  act  without  talking  about  it,  to  leave  a  way  of  escape 
open  to  a  defeated  enemy,  to  be  very  careful,  as  the  saying  is, 
not  to  tread  on  a  serpent's  tail,  and  to  avoid,  like  murder,  any 
mortification  to  an  inferior.  A  deed,  once  done,  is  forgiven 
sooner  or  later,  injurious  though  it  may  have  been  to  other 
people's  interests  (a  fact  which  may  be  explained  in  ways  too 
numerous  to  mention),  but  a  wound  dealt  to  self-love  is  never 
stanched,  and  never  pardoned.  Our  mental  susceptibilities 
are  keener  and,  in  a  sense,  more  vital  than  our  physical  sus- 
ceptibilities, and  the  heart  and  arteries  are  less  sensitive  than 


110  THE  PEASANTRY. 

the  nerves.  In  everything  that  we  do,  in  fact,  it  is  this  inmost 
ego  who  rules  us.  Civil  war  will  quench  an  ancestral  blood- 
feud,  as  has  been  seen  in  the  history  of  Breton  and  Vendean 
families;  but  between  the  spoiler  and  the  spoiled,  the 
slanderer  and  his  victim,  no  reconciliation  is  possible.  People 
should  refrain  from  insulting  each  other,  except  in  epic  poems, 
before  a  general  and  final  slaughter. 

The  savage  and  his  near  relation,  the  peasant,  never  make 
use  of  articulate  speech,  except  to  lay  traps  for  their  enemies. 
Ever  since  1789  France  has  been  trying  to  persuade  mankind, 
against  all  evidence  to  the  contrary,  that  all  men  are  equal; 
you  may  tell  a  man  that  he  is  a  rascal,  and  it  passes  for  a 
harmless  joke  ;  but  once  proceed  to  bring  it  home  to  him  by 
detecting  him  in  the  act,  and  enforcing  your  conclusion  by  a 
horsewhip,  once  threaten  him  with  prosecution  and  fail  to 
execute  your  threat,  and  you  set  up  the  old  conditions  of  in- 
equality again.  And  if  the  people  cannot  suffer  any  superior- 
ity, how  should  any  rogue,  however  successful,  forgive  an  hon- 
est man  ? 

Montcornet  should  have  parted  with  his  steward  on  some 
pretext  of  old  obligations  to  fulfill,  some  old  soldier  to  put  in 
his  place ;  and  both  Gaubertin  and  the  general  would  have 
known  the  real  reason  perfectly  well.  If  the  latter  had  been 
more  careful  of  the  former's  self-love,  he  would  have  left 
an  open  door  for  the  man's  retreat,  and  Gaubertin  would 
have  left  the  great  landowner  in  peace ;  he  would  have  for- 
gotten his  defeat  at  the  auction,  and  very  likely  would 
have  looked  for  an  investment  for  his  capital  in  Paris.  But 
now  that  he  was  ignominiously  driven  from  his  post,  he  nursed 
a  rancorous  hatred  of  his  employer,  one  of  those  hatreds 
which  are  an  element  of  provincial  life;  so  lasting  and  so 
pertinacious  are  they,  that  their  intricate  meshes  amaze  diplo- 
matists, whose  cue  it  is  to  be  astonished  at  nothing.  A  burn- 
ing thirst  for  vengeance  counseled  retirement  to  Ville-aux- 
Fayes ;  there  he  would  put  himself  in  a  position  which  gave 


THE  PEASANTRY.  Ill 

him  power  to  annoy  Montcornet,  and  raise  up  enemies  in 
sufficient  force  to  compel  him  to  sell  the  Aigues. 

Everything  combined  to  deceive  the  general.  Nothing  in 
Gaubertin's  appearance  was  calculated  to  warn  or  alarm  him. 
The  steward  had  always  made  it  a  rule  to  pose  not  exactly  as 
a  poor  man,  but  as  a  man  who  found  it  difficult  to  make  both 
ends  meet — a  tradition  which  was  handed  down  by  his  prede- 
cessor. Therefore  for  the  last  twelve  years  he  put  his  wife  and 
three  children  forward  on  all  occasions,  and  talked  about  the 
heavy  expenses  of  so  large  a  family.  It  was  Mile.  Laguerre 
who  paid  for  his  son's  education  in  Paris;  Gaubertin  told  her 
that  he  himself  was  too  poor  to  afford  the  expense;  and  she, 
Claude  Gaubertin's  godmother,  had  allowed  her  dear  godson 
a  hundred  louis  per  annum. 

The  next  day  Gaubertin  appeared  accompanied  by  one  of 
the  keepers,  Courtecuisse  by  name,  and  held  his  head  high, 
and  asked  for  his  discharge.  He  laid  before  the  general  the 
discharges  given  him  by  the  late  Mile.  Laguerre,  all  couched 
in  flattering  terms,  and  begged,  with  ironical  humility,  that 
the  general  would  discover  and  point  out  any  instances  of  mis- 
appropriation on  his  (Gaubertin's)  part.  If  he  received  a  bonus 
from  the  timber  merchants  and  farmers  on  the  renewal  of  con- 
tracts or  leases,  Mile.  Laguerre  had  always  authorized  it  (he 
said),  and  she  had  actually  been  a  gainer  by  so  doing ;  and 
not  only  so,  by  these  means  she  had  lived  in  peace.  Any  one 
in  the  countryside  would  have  died  for  mademoiselle;  but  if 
the  general  went  on  in  this  way,  he  was  laying  up  trouble  in 
plenty  for  himself. 

Gaubertin  believed — and  this  last  trait  is  very  common  in 
most  professions  where  men  exercise  their  wits  to  take  their 
neighbor's  goods  in  ways  unprovided  for  by  the  Code — Gau- 
bertin believed  that  he  was  a  perfectly  honest  man.  In  the 
first  place,  there  was  the  old  affair  of  the  coin  wrung  from  the 
tenants  during  the  Terror ;  it  was  now  so  long  since  he  re- 


112  THE  PEASANTRY. 

mitted  the  rents  to  Mile.  Laguerre  in  assignats  and  pocketed 
the  difference,  that  he  had  come  to  regard  the  money  as  law- 
fully acquired  gain.  It  was  simply  a  matter  of  exchange.  Be- 
fore he  had  done,  he  began  to  think  that  he  had  even  run 
some  risk  in  taking  silver  crowns,  and  beside,  legally,  made- 
moiselle had  no  right  to  anything  but  assignats.  Legally  is  a 
robust  adverb ;  it  carries  the  weight  of  many  ill-gotten  gains  ! 
Finally,  ever  since  great  landowners  and  stewards  have  existed, 
which  is  to  say,  ever  since  the  first  beginnings  of  civilization, 
the  steward  has  fabricated  for  his  personal  use  a  chain  of 
reasoning  that  finds  favor  with  cookmaids  at  the  present  day, 
and  which  may  be  concisely  stated  as  follows : 

"If  my  mistress  went  to  market  herself"  (so  the  handmaid 
privately  argues),  "  she  would  perhaps  buy  dearer  than  I  do ; 
so  she  is  a  gainer,  and  the  profit  that  I  make  had  better  go 
into  my  pocket  than  to  the  storekeepers." 

"  If  Mademoiselle  Laguerre  were  to  manage  the  Aigues  for 
herself,  she  would  not  make  thirty  thousand  francs  out  of  it ; 
the  peasants,  and  timber  merchants,  and  laborers  would  rob 
her  of  the  difference ;  it  is  more  natural  that  I  should  keep  it ; 
and  I  spare  her  a  deal  of  trouble,"  said  Gaubertin  to  himself. 

No  influence  save  the  Catholic  religion  has  power  to  pre- 
vent such  capitulation  of  conscience  ;  but  since  1789  religion 
in  France  has  lost  its  hold  on  two-thirds  of  the  population. 
Poverty  induces  uniformity,  and  in  the  valley  of  the  Aigues, 
where  the  peasants  were  mentally  very  wide  awake,  they  had 
sunk  to  a  frightful  degree  of  moral  degradation.  They  cer- 
tainly went  to  mass  of  a  Sunday,  but  they  stopped  outside  the 
church,  and  had  fallen  into  a  habit  of  meeting  there  regularly 
to  conclude  bargains  and  discuss  business. 

The  reader  should  by  this  time  have  an  idea  of  the  extent 
of  the  mischief  done  by  the  easy-going  ways  of  the  first  pupil 
of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Music.  Mile.  Laguerre's  selfishness 
had  injured  the  cause  of  those  who  have,  always  an  object  of 
hatred  to  those  who  have  not.  Since  1792  all  the  landowners 


THE  PEASANTRY.  113 

of  France  must  show  a  compact  front,  and  stand  or  fall  to- 
gether. Alas  !  if  the  families  of  feudal  nobles,  less  numerous 
than  bourgeois  families,  could  not  understand  the  unity  of 
their  interests  in  1400  in  the  time  of  Louis  XL,  nor  yet  again 
in  1600  under  Richelieu,  how  should  the  bourgeoisie  of  this 
nineteenth  century  (in  spite  of  its  boasted  progress)  be  more 
united  than  the  old  noblesse  ?  An  oligarchy  of  a  hundred 
thousand  rich  men  has  all  the  drawbacks  of  a  democracy  with 
none  of  its  advantages.  Each  for  himself.  Let  each  man 
mind  his  own  business!  Family  selfishness  is  stronger  than  the 
class  selfishness  so  much  needed  by  society  in  these  days,  that 
oligarchical  selfishness  of  which  England  has  exhibited  such  a 
striking  example  for  the  past  three  hundred  years.  No  matter 
what  is  done,  the  landowners  will  never  see  any  necessity  for 
a  discipline  through  which  the  church  has  come  to  be  such  an 
admirable  model  of  government,  until  the  moment  when  the 
threatened  danger  comes  home  to  them,  and  then  it  will  be 
too  late.  Communism,  that  living  force  and  practical  logic 
of  democracy,  is  already  attacking  society  in  the  domain  of 
theory,  whence  it  is  evident  that  the  proletarian  Samson, 
grown  prudent,  will  henceforth  sap  the  pillars  of  society  in 
•.he  cellar,  instead  of  shaking  them  in  the  banquet- hall. 

VII. 

OF   EXTINCT   SOCIAL  SPECIES. 

The  Aigues  must  have  a  steward,  for  the  general  had  no 
idea  of  giving  up  the  pleasures  of  the  winter  season  in  Paris, 
where  he  had  a  splendid  mansion  in  the  Rue  Neuve-des- 
Mathurins.  So  he  looked  out  for  a  successor  to  Gaubertin  ; 
but,  in  truth,  he  was  at  less  pains  to  find  a  steward  than 
Gaubertin  to  put  a  man  of  his  own  choosing  into  the  place. 

Of  all  responsible  posts,  there  is  not  one  which  demands 
greater  experience  and  more  activity  than  the  stewardship  of 
8 


114  THE  PEASANTRY. 

a  great  estate.  The  difficulty  of  finding  the  man  is  only 
appreciated  by  great  landowners,  and  becomes  acute  only  at  a 
distance  of,  say,  forty  leagues  from  the  capital.  That  is  the 
limit  of  the  area  which  supplies  the  Paris  markets,  the  limit 
also  of  steady  rents  and  of  long  leases,  and  of  tenants  with 
capital  in  competition  for  them.  Tenants  of  this  class  come 
into  town  in  cabriolets  and  pay  their  rent  with  cheques,  if 
indeed  their  salesman  at  the  Great  Market  does  not  make 
their  payments  for  them.  There  is  such  brisk  competition 
for  farms  in  the  departments  of  Seine-et-Oise,  Seine-et-Marne, 
Oise,  Eure-et-Loire,  Seine-In  ferieure,  and  Loiret,  that  capital 
does  not  always  return  one  and  a  half  per  cent.  Even  com- 
pared with  the  returns  of  land  in  Holland,  Belgium,  and  Eng- 
land, this  produce  is  enormous;  but  beyond  a  limit  of  fifty 
leagues  from  Paris,  a  large  estate  means  so  many  different 
forms  of  cultivation,  so  many  and  such  different  crops,  that 
farming  becomes  an  industry,  with  a  manufacturer's  risks.  A 
great  landowner  under  these  circumstances  is  nothing  but  a 
merchant,  who  must  find  a  market  for  his  produce  like  any 
iron-master  or  cotton-spinner.  Nor  is  he  without  competitors ; 
the  peasants  and  the  small  proprietors  cut  down  his  profits 
remorselessly  by  descending  to  transactions  in  which  no  gen- 
tleman will  engage. 

A  steward  should  know  the  system  of  land  measurement, 
the  customs  of  the  countryside,  the  methods  of  sale  and  ex- 
ploitations, and  must  be  able  to  sail  pretty  near  the  wind  in 
his  employer's  interest.  He  must  understand  book-keeping ; 
and,  beside  enjoying  the  best  of  health,  must  have  a  decided 
taste  for  equitation  and  an  active  life.  He  is  the  master's  rep- 
resentative, and  always  in  communication  with  him,  and  can- 
not be  a  man  of  the  people.  And  as  few  stewards'  salaries 
exceed  a  thousand  crowns  per  annum,  the  problem  of  discover- 
ing the  model  steward  would  appear  to  be  insoluble.  How 
should  a  man  combining  so  many  precious  qualities  be  found 
at  such  a  moderate  price,  where  any  employment  is  open  to 


THE  PEASANTRY.  115 

him  in  this  country?  Send  for  a  man  who  does  not  know  the 
district,  and  you  shall  pay  dear  for  the  experience  he  acquires. 
Train  up  a  youth  who  belongs  to  the  neighborhood,  and  in 
all  likelihood  you  cocker  ingratitude.  So  you  are  left  to 
choose  between  honest  ineptitude,  so  slow  or  so  short-sighted 
as  to  injure  your  interests,  and  self-seeking  cleverness.  Where- 
fore the  classification  and  natural  history  of  stewards  was  thus 
summed  up  by  a  great  Polish  landowner,  "  There  are  two 
varieties  here,"  said  he;  "  the  first  kind  of  steward  thinks  of 
no  one  but  himself;  the  second  thinks  of  us  as  well  as  of  him- 
self; happy  the  landowner  who  can  put  his  hand  on  the 
second  !  As  for  the  steward  who  only  thinks  of  your  interests, 
he  has  never  been  seen  here  up  to  the  present  time  !  " 

An  example  of  a  steward  who  bears  his  employer's  interests 
in  mind,  as  well  as  his  own,  has  been  given  elsewhere  ;*  Gau- 
bertin  is  the  steward  who  thinks  of  nothing  but  his  own  for- 
tune ;  as  for  the  third  term  of  the  problem,  any  representation 
of  him  would  probably  be  regarded  as  a  fancy  portrait ;  he  was 
known  to  the  old  noblesse,  but  the  type  vanished  with  them.f 
The  continual  subdivision  of  fortunes  inevitably  brings  about 
a  change  in  the  way  of  life  of  the  aristocracy.  If  there  are 
not  at  present  twenty  fortunes  administered  by  a  steward,  in 
fifty  years'  time  there  will  not  be  a  hundred  great  estates  left 
for  stewards  to  administer,  unless  some  change  is  made  mean- 
while in  the  law.  Every  rich  landowner  will  be  obliged  to 
look  closely  to  his  own  interests  himself.  This  process  of 
transformation,  even  now  begun,  suggested  the  remark  made 
by  a  witty  old  lady,  who  was  asked  why  she  had  spent  the 
summer  in  Paris  since  1830  :  "  Since  the  castles  became  farm- 
houses I  have  ceased  to  visit  them,"  she  said. 

But  what  will  be  the  end  of  a  dispute  which  waxes  hotter 
and  hotter  between  man  and  man,  between  rich  and  poor? 
This  Study  has  been  undertaken  to  throw  light  upon  this  ter- 
rible social  question,  and  for  no  other  reason. 

*  See  "  Un  Debut  dans  la  Vie."  f  "  Le  Cabinet  des  Antiques." 


116  THE  PEASANTRY. 

The  general  had  dismissed  Gaubertin,  and  the  general's 
awkward  predicament  may  be  imagined.  While  saying  vaguely 
to  himself,  like  all  persons  who  are  free  to  act  or  not,  "  I  will 
get  rid  of  that  rogue,"  he  had  not  reckoned  with  fate,  nor 
with  his  own  furious  outbursts  of  anger,  the  anger  of  a  choleric 
fire-eater,  ready  to  break  out  as  soon  as  some  flagrant  misdeed 
should  force  him  to  raise  the  eyelids  which  he  deliberately 
closed. 

Montcornet,  a  Parisian  born  and  bred,  was  a  landowner  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life,  and  his  preliminary  studies  of  the 
country  had  convinced  him  that  some  intermediary  between  a 
man  in  his  position  and  so  many  peasants  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary ;  but  he  had  omitted  to  provide  himself  beforehand  with 
a  steward. 

Gaubertin  in  the  course  of  an  exchange  of  courtesies,  which 
lasted  for  a  couple  of  hours,  discovered  the  general's  predica- 
ment ;  so,  on  leaving  the  house,  the  ex-steward  bestrode  his 
cob,  and  galloped  off  to  take  counsel  with  Soudry  at  Sou- 
langes. 

No  sooner  had  he  said,  "The  general  and  I  have  parted 
company ;  how  can  we  fit  him  with  a  steward  of  our  own 
choosisg  ? ' '  than  the  Soudrys  saw  what  their  friend  had  in 
mind.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Police-sergeant  Soudry 
had  been  in  office  in  the  canton  for  seventeen  years,  and  that 
to  back  him  he  had  a  wife  endowed  with  the  cunning  peculiar 
to  an  opera-singer's  waiting-maid. 

"  He  will  go  a  long  way  before  he  will  find  any  one  as  good 
as  poor  Sibilet,"  said  Mme.  Soudry. 

"  His  goose  is  cooked  !  "  cried  Gaubertin,  still  red  with  the 
humiliations  he  had  been  through. 

"Lupin,"  he  went  on,  turning  to  the  notary  who  was 
present,  "just  go  down  to Ville-aux-Fayes  and  prime  Mare- 
chal,  in  case  our  fine  Cuirassier  goes  to  ask  him  for  informa- 
tion." 

M.  Marechal  was  the  local  attorney  who  had  bought  the 


THE   PEASANTRY.  117 

Aigues,  and  had  naturally  been  recommended  to  Montcornet 
by  his  own  family  attorney  in  Paris  after  the  happy  conclusion 
of  the  bargain. 

The  Sibilet  to  whom  they  alluded,  the  oldest  son  of  the 
clerk  of  the  court  at  Ville-aux-Fayes,  was  a  notary's  clerk 
without  a  penny  to  bless  himself  with.  He  had  fallen  madly 
in  love  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  with  the  daughter  of  the  justice 
of  the  peace  at  Soulanges. 

That  worthy  magistrate,  Sarcus  by  name,  having  a  stipend 
of  fifteen  hundred  francs,  had  married  a  penniless  girl,  the 
oldest  sister  of  the  Soulanges  apothecary,  M.  Vermut.  Mile. 
Sarcus  was  an  only  daughter,  but  her  beauty  was  all  her 
dowry,  and  she  could  not  be  said  to  live  on  the  salary  of  a 
country  notary's  clerk.  Young  Sibilet  was  related  to  Gau- 
bertin  (his  precise  degree  of  relationship  would  have  been 
rather  difficult  to  trace  among  the  family  ramifications  of  a 
small  town  where  all  the  middle-class  people  were  cousins) ; 
but,  thanks  to  his  father  and  to  Gaubertin,  he  had  a  modest 
place  in  the  Land  Registration  Department.  To  this  luckless 
young  man's  lot  fell  the  alarming  blessing  of  two  children  in 
three  years'  time.  His  own  father  had  a  family  of  five,  and 
could  do  nothing  to  help  his  son;  his  father-in-law,  the  justice 
of  the  peace,  had  nothing  but  his  house  in  Soulanges  and  a 
thousand  crowns  of  income,  so  Mme.  Sibilet  the  younger  and 
her  two  children  lived  for  the  most  part  under  her  father's 
roof;  and  Adolphe  Sibilet,  whose  duties  took  him  all  over 
the  department,  only  saw  his  Adeline  at  intervals,  an  ar- 
rangement which,  perhaps,  explains  the  fruitfulness  of  some 
marriages. 

Gaubertin's  exclamation  will  be  easily  understood  by  the 
light  of  this  summary  of  Sibilet's  history,  but  a  few  explanatory 
details  must  be  added.  Adolphe  Sibilet,  surpassingly  ill- 
favored,  as  has  been  seen  in  a  preceding  sketch,  belonged  to 
that  class  of  men  whose  only  way  to  a  woman's  heart  lies 
through  the  mayor's  office  and  the  church.  With  something 


118  THE  PEASANTRY. 

of  the  suppleness  of  a  steel  spring,  he  would  relinquish  his  idea 
to  seize  on  it  again  at  a  later  day,  a  shifty  disposition  of  mind 
closely  resembling  baseness ;  but  in  the  course  of  an  appren- 
ticeship served  in  a  country  notary's  office,  Sibilet  had  learned 
to  hide  this  defect  beneath  a  gruff  manner,  which  simulated  a 
strength  which  he  did  not  possess.  Plenty  of  hollow  natures 
mask  their  emptiness  in  this  way  ;  deal  their  own  measure  to 
them,  and  you  shall  see  them  collapse  like  a  balloon  at  a  pin- 
prick. This  was  the  clerk's  son.  But  as  men,  for  the  most 
part,  are  not  observers,  and  as  among  observers  three-fourths 
observe  after  the  fact,  Adolphe  Sibilet's  grumbling  manner 
was  taken  for  the  result  of  an  honest  outspoken  nature,  a  capa- 
city much  praised  by  his  employer,  and  an  upright  integrity, 
which  had  never  been  put  to  the  proof.  Sometimes  a  man's 
defects  are  as  useful  to  him  as  better  qualities  to  his  neighbor. 

Adeline  Sarcus,  a  nice-looking  young  woman,  had  been 
brought  up  by  a  mother  (who  died  three  years  before  her 
marriage)  as  carefully  as  only  daughters  can  be  educated  in 
a  little  out-of-the-way  place.  Adeline  was  in  love  with  the 
handsome  Lupin,  only  son  of  the  Soulanges  notary.  But 
her  romance  was  still  in  its  early  chapters  when  Lupin  senior 
(who  intended  his  son  to  marry  Mile.  Elise  Gaubertin)  sent 
young  Amaury  Lupin  to  Paris  into  the  office  of  Maitre  Crottat, 
notary ;  and,  under  the  pretense  of  studying  the  art  of  con- 
veyancing and  drawing  up  contracts,  Amaury  led  a  wild  life, 
and  got  into  debt  under  the  auspices  of  another  clerk  in  the 
sdme  office,  one  George  Marest,  a  wealthy  young  fellow,  who 
initiated  Lupin  into  the  mysteries  of  Parisian  life.  By  the 
time  that  Maitre  Lupin  came  to  fetch  his  son  home  again, 
Adeline  had  changed  her  name,  and  was  Mme.  Sibilet.  In 
fact,  when  the  amorous  Adolphe  presented  himself,  Sarcus, 
the  old  justice  of  the  peace,  acting  on  a  hint  from  Lupin 
senior,  hastened  on  a  marriage,  to  which  Adeline  resigned 
herself  in  despair. 

An  assessor's  place  is  not  a  career.     Like  many  other  depart- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  119 

ments  which  offer  no  prospects,  it  is  a  sort  of  hole  in  the 
administrative  colander.  The  men  who  start  in  life  through  one 
of  these  holes  (say  in  the  Ordnance  Survey,  Department  of 
Roads  and  Bridges,  or  the  teaching  profession)  always  discover 
a  little  late  that  cleverer  men  than  themselves,  seated  beside 
them,  are  "  kept  moist  by  the  sweat  of  the  people"  (in  the 
language  of  Opposition  writers)  every  time  that  the  colander 
is  dipped  into  the  taxes  by  means  of  the  machinery  called  the 
Budget.  Adolphe,  working  early  and  late,  and  earning 
little,  very  soon  discovered  the  bottomless  barrenness  of  his 
hole ;  so  as  he  trotted  from  commune  to  commune,  spending 
his  salary  on  traveling  expenses  and  shoe  leather,  his 
thoughts  were  busy  with  schemes  for  finding  a  permanent  and 
profitable  situation. 

No  one  can  imagine,  unless  indeed  he  happens  to  squint 
and  to  have  two  children  born  in  lawful  wedlock,  how  three 
years  of  struggle  and  love  had  developed  ambition  in  this 
young  fellow,  who  had  a  mental  squint  resembling  his  physi- 
cal infirmity,  and  whose  happiness  halted,  as  it  were.  Perhaps 
an  incomplete  happiness  is  the  chief  cause  of  most  scoundrelly 
actions  and  untold  baseness  committed  in  secret;  it  maybe 
that  we  can  more  easily  endure  hopeless  misery  than  steady 
rain,  with  brief  glimpse  of  sunshine  and  love.  Just  as  the 
body  contracts  diseases,  the  soul  contracts  the  canker  of  envy. 
In  little  natures  envy  becomes  a  base  and  brutal  covetousness, 
shrinking  from  sight,  but  from  nothing  else;  in  cultivated 
minds  it  fosters  subversive  doctrines,  which  a  man  uses  as  a 
stepping-stone  to  raise  himself  above  his  superiors.  Might  not 
the  situation  be  summed  up  in  an  aphorism,  "Tell  me  what 
you  have,  and  I  will  tell  you  your  opinions?" 

Adolphe  was  fond  of  his  wife,  but  he  constantly  said  to 
himself,  "  I  have  made  a  mistake  ;  I  have  three  sets  of  shackles, 
and  only  one  pair  of  legs ;  I  ought  to  have  made  my  way 
before  I  married.  I  might  have  found  an  Adeline  any  day ; 
but  now  Adeline  stands  in  my  way." 


120  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Adolphe  had  gone  to  see  his  relative  Gaubertin  three  times 
in  as  many  years.  A  few  words  that  he  let  fall  told  Gaubertin 
that  here  in  his  relative's  soul  was  the  mud  which  hardens 
under  the  fiery  heat  of  the  temptation  of  legalized  robbery. 
Warily  he  probed  this  nature,  which  seemed  plastic  to  his 
purpose,  provided  it  were  worth  while  to  yield.  Adolphe 
Sibilet  grumbled  on  each  occasion. 

"  Just  find  me  something  to  do,  cousin,"  he  said.  "  Take 
me  on  as  your  clerk,  and  make  me  your  successor.  I  would 
remove  mountains  to  give  my  Adeline,  I  will  not  say  luxury, 
but  a  modest  competence.  You  made  Monsieur  Leclercq's 
fortune ;  why  should  you  not  start  me  in  the  banking  line  in 
Paris?" 

"We  will  see.  Some  day  I  will  find  a  place  for  you,"  his 
ambitious  relative  would  reply.  "  Meantime,  make  acquaint- 
ances, everything  helps." 

In  this  frame  of  mind  a  letter  from  Mme.  Soudry,  bidding 
him  "come  at  once,"  brought  Adolphe  in  hot  haste  to  Sou- 
langes  through  a  region  of  castles  in  the  air. 

The  Soudrys  explained  to  Sarcus  that  on  him  devolved  the 
duty  of  calling  on  the  general  on  the  morrow  to  put  in  a  word 
for  his  son-in-law,  and  suggest  Adolphe  for  the  vacant  posi- 
tion. Acting  on  the  advice  of  Mme.  Soudry,  the  local  oracle, 
the  old  man  had  taken  his  daughter  with  him,  and  the  sight 
of  her  had  disposed  Montcornet  in  their  favor. 

"I  shall  not  decide  until  I  have  made  inquiries,"  the 
general  said,  "  but  I  will  not  look  out  for  any  one  else  until 
I  have  seen  whether  or  not  your  son-in-law  is  in  all  respects 
the  man  for  the  place.  The  desire  of  settling  so  charming  a 
young  lady  at  the  Aigues " 

"The  mother  of  two  children,  general,"  said  Adeline 
adroitly,  to  turn  off  the  old  soldier's  compliments. 

All  the  general's  inquiries  were  cleverly  anticipated  by  the 
Soudrys,  with  Gaubertin  and  Lupin,  who  skillfully  obtained 
for  their  candidate  the  influence  of  the  leading  men  in  the 


THE  PEASANTRY.  121 

principal  town  of  the  canton  —  Councilor  Gendrin  of  the 
Court-Royal  (a  distant  relation  of  the  president  at  Ville-aux- 
Fayes) ;  Baron  Bourlac,  attorney-general  and  young  Soudry's 
chief;  and  Sarcus,  councilor  of  the  prefecture,  third  cousin  to 
Adeline's  father.  Everybody,  from  the  general's  attorney  to 
the  prefect  (to  whom  the  general  went  in  person),  had  a  good 
word  for  the  underpaid  official,  "so  interesting"  he  was  said 
to  be.  Sibilet's  marriage  made  him  as  irreproachable  as  one 
of  Miss  Edgeworth's  novels,  and  marked  him  out  as  a  man 
above  mercenary  motives. 

The  time  which  the  steward  spent  perforce  at  the  Aigues 
was  turned  to  profit.  He  did  all  that  in  him  lay  to  make 
trouble  and  annoyance  for  his  old  employer,  but  a  single  little 
scene  will  give  a  sufficient  idea  of  the  rest.  The  day  after  his 
dismissal  he  made  an  opportunity  of  finding  Courtecuisse,  the 
one  forester  employed  under  his  rule  at  the  Aigues,  which 
really  required  three  at  the  least. 

"Well,  Monsieur  Gaubertin,"  remarked  the  other,  "so 
you  have  had  words  with  the  master,  have  you?" 

"  You  know  that  already  !  "  exclaimed  Gaubertin.  "  Well, 
yes.  The  general  takes  it  upon  himself  to  order  us  about  like 
his  Cuirassiers ;  he  does  not  know  us  Burgundians.  Monsieur 
le  Comte  was  not  satisfied  with  my  services,  and,  as  I  was  not 
satisfied  with  his  ways,  we  dismissed  each  other ;  we  almost 
came  to  blows  over  it,  for  he  is  a  perfect  tempest.  Look  out 
for  yourself,  Courtecuisse !  Ah  !  old  boy,  I  once  thought  to 
have  given  you  a  better  master " 

"I  know  you  did,"  said  the  keeper,  "and  I  would  have 
served  you  well.  Lord !  after  knowing  each  other  these 
twenty  years.  You  took  me  on  here  in  poor  dear  sainted 
madame's  time!  Ah!  a  kind  woman  she  was;  they  don't 
make  such  as  her  now !  The  place  has  lost  a  mother  in 
her." 

"I  say,  Courtecuisse,  if  you  are  willing,  you  can  do  us  a 
fine  good  turn." 


122  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  Then  are  you  going  to  stop  in  the  place  ?  We  heard  you 
were  going  to  Paris." 

"  No.  I  shall  find  something  to  do  at  Ville-aux-Fayes,  and 
see  how  things  turn  out.  The  general  does  not  know  the 
people  he  is  dealing  with ;  he  will  be  hated,  do  you  see  ?  I 
must  wait  and  see  if  anything  turns  up.  Go  softly  about  your 
business  here;  he  will  tell  you  to  carry  things  with  a  high 
hand,  for  he  can  see  well  enough  where  the  waste  goes  on. 
But  do  not  you  be  so  thick-headed  as  to  lay  yourself  open  to 
a  drubbing,  and  maybe  worse  than  a  drubbing,  from  the 
people  round  about  for  the  sake  of  his  timber." 

"  Dear  Monsieur  Gaubertin,  he  will  turn  me  away,  and  you 
know  how  very  well  off  I  am  at  the  Avonne  gate." 

"The  general  will  be  sick  of  his  property  before  long," 
said  Gaubertin  ;  "it  will  not  be  long  before  you  come  back 
if  he  does  turn  you  off.  And,  beside,  do  you  see  these  woods 
here?"  he  added,  waving  his  hand  toward  the  landscape,  "I 
am  stronger  there  than  the  masters." 

They  were  talking  out  in  a  field. 

"These  Arminacs  from  Paris  ought  to  keep  to  their  gutters 
in  Paris,"  said  the  keeper. 

That  word  Arminacs  has  come  down  from  the  fifteenth 
century,  when  the  Armagnacs,  the  Parisians,  were  hostile  to 
the  Duke  of  Burgundy.  It  is  a  word  of  abuse  to-day  on  the 
outskirts  of  Upper  Burgundy,  where  it  is  mispronounced  in 
various  ways  in  different  districts. 

"  He  shall  go  back,  but  not  before  he  has  had  a  thrashing!  " 
said  Gaubertin.  "  Some  of  these  days  we  will  turn  the  park 
at  the  Aigues  into  ploughed  land,  for  it  is  robbing  the  people 
to  keep  nine  hundred  acres  of  the  best  land  in  the  valley  for 
the  pleasure  of  an  upstart." 

"  Lord  !  that  would  keep  four  hundred  families  !  "  put  in 
Courtecuisse. 

"  Well,  if  you  want  two  acres  for  yourself  out  of  it,  you 
must  help  us  to  make  an  outlaw  of  that  cur " 


THE  PEASANTRY.  123 

While  Gaubertin  was  fulminating  his  sentence  of  excom- 
munication, the  worthy  justice  of  the  peace  was  introducing 
his  son-in-law,  Adolphe  Sibilet,  to  the  general.  Adeline  had 
come  with  the  two  children  in  the  basket-chaise  borrowed 
of  Sarcus'  registrar,  a  M.  Gourdon,  brother  of  the  Soulanges 
doctor,  and  a  richer  man  than  the  justice.  This  kind  of 
thing,  which  suits  but  ill  with  the  dignity  of  the  magistrate's 
office,  is  to  be  seen  everywhere  ;  every  justice's  clerk  is  richer 
than  the  justice  himself;  every  clerk  of  a  court  of  first  in- 
stance is  better  paid  than  the  president ;  whereas  it  would 
seem  only  natural  to  pay  the  subordinate,  not  by  fees,  but  by 
a  fixed  salary,  and  so  to  cut  down  the  expenses  of  litigation. 

The  general  was  well  pleased  with  the  worthy  functionary's 
character  and  straightforwardness,  and  with  Adeline's  charm- 
ing appearance ;  and,  in  fact,  these  two  made  their  promises 
in  all  good  faith,  for  neither  father  nor  daughter  knew  of  the 
diplomatic  part  cut  out  for  Sibilet  by  Gaubertin  ;  so  M.  de 
Montcornet  at  once  made  to  the  young  and  interesting  couple 
proposals  which  would  make  the  position  of  steward  of  the 
manor  equal  to  that  of  a  sub-prefect  of  the  first  class. 

A  lodge  built  by  Bouret,  partly  as  a  feature  of  the  landscape, 
partly  as  a  house  for  the  steward,  was  assigned  to  the  Sibilets. 
It  was  a  picturesque  building  in  the  same  style  as  the  Blangy 
gate,  which  has  been  sufficiently  described  already ;  Gaubertin 
had  previously  lived  there.  The  general  showed  no  intention 
of  putting  down  the  riding-horse  which  Mile.  Laguerre  had 
allowed  Gaubertin  for  his  own  use,  on  account  of  the  size  of 
the  estate,  and  the  distance  he  was  obliged  to  go  to  markets 
and  on  other  necessary  business.  The  new  steward  was  allowed 
a  hundred  bushels  of  wheat,  three  hogsheads  of  wine,  as  much 
firewood  as  he  required,  oats  and  barley  in  abundance,  and 
three  per  cent,  upon  the  receipts.  If  Mile.  Laguerre  had 
drawn  more  than  forty  thousand  livres  of  income  from  the 
estate  in  1800,  the  general  thought,  and  with  good  reason, 
that  after  all  her  numerous  and  important  purchases  it  should 


124  THE  PEASANTRY. 

bring  in  sixty  thousand  in  1818.  The  new  steward,  there- 
fore, might  look  to  make  nearly  two  thousand  francs  in  money 
some  day.  He  would  live  rent  free  and  tax  free,  with  no 
expenses  for  food,  or  fuel,  or  horse,  or  poultry-yard  ;  and, 
beside  all  this,  the  count  allowed  him  a  kitchen  garden,  and 
promised  not  to  consider  a  day's  work  done  in  it  by  the  gar- 
dener now  and  again.  Such  advantages  were  certainly  worth 
a  good  two  thousand  francs.  The  stewardship  of  the  Aigues 
after  the  assessorship  was  a  transition  from  penury  to  wealth. 

"If  you  devote  yourself  to  my  interests,"  said  the  general, 
"  I  may  do  more  for  you.  For  one  thing,  I  shall  have  it  in 
my  power  to  appoint  you  to  collect  the  taxes  in  Conches, 
Blangy,  and  Cerneux,  separating  those  three  places  from  the 
Soulanges  division.  In  short,  as  soon  as  you  bring  the  net 
receipts  up  to  sixty  thousand  francs,  you  shall  have  your 
reward." 

Unluckily,  the  worthy  Sarcus  and  Adeline,  in  the  joy  of 
their  hearts,  were  so  imprudent  as  to  tell  Mme.  Soudry  about 
the  count's  promise.  They  forgot  that  the  receiver  at  Sou- 
langes was  one  Guerbert,  brother  of  the  postmaster  at  Conches, 
and  a  connection,  as  will  be  seen  later,  of  the  Gendrins  and 
Gaubertins. 

"It  will  not  be  easy  to  do,  my  child,"  said  Mme.  Soudry, 
"  but  do  not  hinder  the  count  from  setting  about  it ;  no  one 
knows  how  easily  the  hardest  things  are  done  in  Paris.  I  have 
seen  the  Chevalier  Gluck  down  on  his  knees  to  madame  that's 
gone,  and  she  sang  his  part  for  him — she  that  would  have  cut 
herself  in  pieces  for  Piccini,  and  Piccini  was  one  of  the  most 
agreeable  men  of  those  days.  He  never  came  to  madame's 
house,  dear  gentleman,  but  he  would  put  his  arm  round  my 
waist  and  call  me  his  '  pretty  rogue.'  " 

"  Oh,  indeed  !  "  cried  the  sergeant,  when  his  wife  retailed 
this  piece  of  news,  "so  he  thinks  that  he  will  do  as  he  likes 
with  the  place,  turn  things  upside  down,  and  order  people 
about  right  and  left  as  if  they  were  men  in  his  regiment. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  125 

These  officers  have  domineering  ways !  But  wait  awhile,  we 
have  Monsieur  de  Soulanges  and  Monsieur  de  Ronquerolles  on 
our  side.  Poor  old  Guerbet,  how  little  he  suspects  that  they 
mean  to  pluck  the  finest  roses  off  his  tree." 

The  lady's-maid  had  this  piece  of  Dorat  phraseology  from 
Mile.  Laguerre,  who  learned  it  of  Bouret,  who  had  it  from 
some  editor  of  the  "  Mercury."  And  now  Soudry  used  it  so 
often  that  it  became  a  current  saying  at  Soulanges. 

Now  "  old  Guerbet,"  receiver  of  taxes  at  Soulanges,  was  a 
local  wit,  the  stock  comic  character  of  the  little  town,  and  one 
of  the  notables  of  Mme.  Soudry's  set.  The  sergeant's  outburst 
exactly  expressed  the  general  feeling  toward  the  master  of  the 
Aigues.  From  Conches  to  Ville-aux-Fayes  the  whole  district 
had  been  poisoned  against  him  by  Gaubertin's  efforts. 

Sibilet's  installation  took  place  toward  the  end  of  the  autumn 
of  1817.  The  year  1818  came  and  went,  and  the  general 
never  set  foot  on  the  estate.  He  was  occupied  by  his  own 
approaching  marriage,  which  took  place  early  in  1819,  and  he 
spent  most  of  the  summer  in  paying  court  to  his  betrothed  in 
his  future  father-in-law's  castle  near  Alencon.  Beside  the 
Aigues  and  his  splendid  townhouse,  General  de  Montcornet 
possessed  an  income  of  sixty  thousand  francs  in  the  Funds, 
and  drew  the  pay  of  a  lieutenant-general  on  the  reserve.  Yet, 
although  Napoleon  had  made  the  brilliant  soldier  a  count  of 
the  Empire,  granting  him  for  arms  a  shield  bearing  four  coats 
quarterly :  the  first,  azure,  on  a  desert  or  three  pyramids 
argent;  the  second,  sinople,  three  bugles  argent ;  the  third,  gules, 
a  cannon  or,  mounted  on  a  gun-carriage  sable,  in  chief  a  cres- 
cent of  the  second ;  the  fourth,  or  a  crown  sinople,  with  the 
mediaeval  sounding  motto,  Sonnez  la  charge,  Montcornet  was 
conscious  that  his  father  had  been  a  cabinet-maker  in  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Antoine,  a  fact  which  he  was  perfectly  willing 
to  forget.  Wherefore,  consumed  with  a  desire  to  be  a  peer  of 
France,  he  counted  as  naught  his  grand  cordon  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor,  his  cross  of  Saint-Louis,  and  a  hundred  and  forty 


126  THE  PEASANTRY. 

thousand  francs  of  income.  The  demon  of  titles  had  bitten 
him,  the  sight  of  a  blue  ribbon  drove  him  distracted,  and  the 
heroic  fighter  on  Essling  field  would  have  lapped  all  the  mud 
on  the  Pont  Royal  to  gain  an  entrance  into  the  set  of  the 
Navarreins,  Lenoncourts,  Maufrigneuses,  d'Espards,  and  Van- 
denesses,  the  families  of  Grandlieu,  Verneuil,  d'Herouville, 
Chaulieu,  and  so  forth. 

In  the  year  1818,  when  it  became  plain  to  him  that  there 
was  no  hope  of  a  return  of  the  Bonapartes,  Montcornet  availed 
himself  of  the  friendly  offices  of  his  friends'  wives.  Those 
ladies  advertised  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  that  the  gen- 
eral was  ready  to  give  heart  and  hand  and  fortune  and  a  house 
in  town  as  the  price  of  an  alliance  with  any  great  family  what- 
soever. 

It  was  the  Duchesse  de  Carigliano  who  succeeded  after  un- 
told efforts  in  finding  a  suitable  match  in  one  of  the  three 
branches  of  the  Troisville  family,  to  wit,  that  of  the  viscount 
who  had  been  in  the  Russian  service  since  1 789,  and  came 
back  with  the  emigrants  in  1815.  The  viscount  had  only  a 
younger  brother's  share  when  he  married  a  Princesse  Scher- 
bellof  with  near  a  million  to  her  fortune ;  but  his  estate  had 
been  burdened  since  by  two  sons  and  three  daughters.  His 
ancient  and  powerful  family  numbered  among  its  members  a 
peer  of  France,  the  Marquis  de  Troisville,  head  of  the  oldest 
branch  ;  as  well  as  two  deputies,  each  with  a  numerous  pro- 
geny all  busy  in  getting  their  share  out  of  the  taxes,  hangers- 
on  attached  to  the  ministry  and  the  court,  like  goldfishes 
about  a  crust.  So,  as  soon  as  Montcornet  was  introduced  into 
this  family  by  one  of  the  most  zealous  Bourbon  partisans 
among  Napoleon's  duchesses,  he  was  well  received.  Mont- 
cornet asked,  in  return  for  his  money  and  a  blind  affection  for 
his  wife,  fora  post  in  the  Royal  Guards,  a  marquis'  patent, 
and  to  be  in  time  a  peer  of  France ;  but  all  that  the  Troisvilles 
promised  him  was  the  influence  and  support  of  their  three 
branches. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  127 

"You  know  what  that  means,"  said  the  marechale  to  her 
old  friend,  complaining  that  the  promise  was  rather  vague. 
"No  one  can  answer  for  the  King;  we  can  only  prompt  the 
royal  will." 

Montcornet  made  Virginie  de  Troisville  his  residuary 
legatee  in  the  marriage-contract.  Completely  subjugated  by 
his  wife,  as  explained  in  Blondet's  letter,  he  was  still  without 
other  heirs,  but  he  had  been  presented  at  the  court  of  Louis 
XVIII.,  and  his  majesty  had  conferred  the  ribbon  of  Saint- 
Louis  upon  the  old  Bonapartist,  and  allowed  him  to  quarter 
his  preposterous  escutcheon  with  the  arms  of  Troisville ;  the 
marquisate  and  peerage  were  promised  as  rewards  to  future 
devotion. 

But,  a  few  days  after  the  audience,  the  Due  de  Berri  was 
murdered,  the  Pavilion  Marsan  carried  all  before  it,  Villele 
came  into  power,  and  all  the  Troisvilles'  threads  of  diplomacy 
were  broken  off;  new  points  of  attachment  must  be  found  for 
them  among  the  ministry. 

"We  must  wait,"  said  the  Troisvilles,  and  Montcornet, 
overwhelmed  as  he  was  with  civilities  in  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Germain,  waited.  This  was  how  the  general  came  to  stay 
away  from  the  Aigues  in  1818. 

In  his  happiness  (ineffable  bliss  for  the  storekeeper's  son 
from  the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine)  with  this  young  wife, 
highly  bred,  lively,  and  sweet-natured,  he  must  shower  all  the 
delights  of  Paris  upon  the  daughter  of  the  Troisvilles,  who 
had  opened  all  doors  in  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain  to  him ; 
and  these  divers  joys  so  completely  effaced  the  unpleasant 
scene  with  the  steward  from  his  mind  that  Gaubertin  and  his 
doings  and  his  very  name  were  quite  forgotten. 

In  1820  the  general  brought  the  countess  into  the  country 
to  show  her  the  Aigues,  and  passed  Sibilet's  accounts  and 
ratified  his  actions  without  looking  too  closely  into  them. 
Happiness  is  no  haggler.  The  countess  was  delighted  to  find 
the  steward's  wife  such  a  charming  woman,  and  made  presents 


128  THE  PEASANTRY. 

to  her  and  to  the  children,  with  whom  she  played  for  a  little 
while.  She  also  commanded  some  alterations  in  the  house, 
and  an  architect  was  summoned  from  Paris ;  for  she  proposed 
(and  the  general  was  wild  with  joy  at  the  thought)  to  spend 
six  months  out  of  the  twelve  in  such  a  splendid  abode.  All 
the  general's  savings  were  spent  on  carrying  out  the  architect's 
scheme  and  on  the  dainty  furniture  from  Paris;  and  the 
Aigues  received  that  final  touch  which  stamped  it  as  unique — 
a  monument  to  the  tastes  of  four  different  centuries. 

In  1821  the  general  was  almost  summoned  by  Sibilet  before 
the  month  of  May.  Weighty  matters  were  at  stake.  The 
nine  years'  lease  of  the  woods  to  a  timber  merchant,  con- 
cluded by  Gaubertin  in  1812  at  thirty  thousand  francs,  ex- 
pired on  May  i5th  of  that  year.  So,  at  first,  Sibilet  would 
not  meddle  in  the  matter  of  renewing  the  lease  ;  he  was  jealous 
of  his  reputation  for  honesty.  "You  know,  M.  le  Comte," 
he  wrote,  "that  I  have  no  finger  in  that  pie."  But  the  timber 
merchant  wanted  the  indemnity  which  he  had  shared  with 
Gaubertin,  an  exaction  to  which  Mile.  Laguerre  had  submitted 
in  her  dislike  of  lawsuits.  The  excuse  for  the  indemnity  was 
based  on  the  depredations  of  the  peasantry,  who  behaved  as 
if  they  had  an  established  right  to  cut  wood  for  fuel  in  the 
forest.  Messrs.  Gravelot  Brothers,  the  timber  merchants  in 
Paris,  declined  to  pay  for  the  last  quarter,  and  offered  to  bring 
experts  to  prove  that  the  woods  had  fallen  off  one-fifth  in 
their  annual  value ;  they  argued  from  the  bad  precedent  estab- 
lished by  Mile.  Laguerre. 

"  I  have  already  summoned  these  gentlemen  to  appear  in 
the  Court  at  Ville-aux-Fayes,"  so  Sibilet's  letter  ran,  "  for,  on 
account  of  this  lease,  they  have  appointed  their  domicile  with 
my  old  employer,  Maitre  Corbinet.  I  am  afraid  we  shall  lose 
the  day." 

"  Here  is  a  matter  in  which  our  income  is  involved,  fair 
lady,"  said  the  general,  showing  the  letter  to  his  wife;  "do 
you  mind  going  sooner  than  last  year  to  the  Aigues?" 


THE   PEASANTRY.  129 

"  Do  you  go,  and  I  will  come  down  as  soon  as  the  summer 
begins,"  said  the  countess,  rather  pleased  with  the  prospect  of 
staying  behind  in  Paris  by  herself. 

So  the  general  set  out  alone.  He  was  fully  determined  to 
take  strong  measures,  for  he  knew  the  treacherous  disease 
which  was  eating  into  the  best  of  his  revenues ;  but,  as  remains 
to  be  seen,  the  general  reckoned  without  his  Gaubertin. 


VIII. 

THE   GREAT  REVOLUTIONS   OF  A  LITTLE  VALLEY. 

"Well,  now,  Lawyer  Sibilet,"  began  the  general  on  the 
morning  after  his  arrival,  addressing  his  steward  by  a  familiar 
nickname,  which  showed  how  much  he  appreciated  the  legal 
knowledge  of  the  quondam  notary's  clerk.  "Well,  Lawyer 
Sibilet,  and  so,  in  Ministerial  language,  we  are  '  passing 
through  a  crisis,'  are  we  ?  " 

"Yes,  Monsieur  le  Comte,"  replied  Sibilet,  following  in  the 
general's  wake. 

The  happy  proprietor  of  the  Aigues  was  walking  up  and 
down  before  his  steward's  house,  in  a  space  where  Mme. 
Sibilet's  flowers  were  growing  on  the  edge  of  the  wide  stretch 
of  grass  watered  by  the  broad  channel  spoken  of  in  Blondet's 
letter.  The  Aigues  itself  lay  in  full  view  of  the  garden,  even 
as  from  the  castle  you  saw  the  steward's  house,  which  had  been 
built  for  the  sake  of  its  effect  in  the  landscape. 

"  But  where  is  the  difficulty?"  pursued  the  general.  "I 
shall  go  through  with  the  Gravelots'  case ;  a  wound  in  the 
purse  is  not  mortal.  And  I  will  have  the  contract  well  ad- 
vertised ;  we  shall  soon  find  out  the  real  value  of  the  lease  by 
comparing  the  bids  of  the  competitors." 

"Things  will  not  go  off  that  way,  Monsieur  le  Comte," 
Sibilet  answered.     "  If  you  have  no  offers,  what  will  you  do 
then?" 
9 


130  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"Fell  ray  timber,  and  sell  it  myself." 

"You  turn  timber  merchant !  "  cried  Sibilet,  and  saw  that 
the  general  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "I  am  quite  willing. 
Let  us  say  no  more  about  your  affairs  here.  Let  us  look  at 
Paris.  You  would  have  to  take  a  timber-yard  on  lease  there, 
take  out  a  license,  pay  taxes,  pay  lighterage,  city  dues,  wharf- 
ingers and  workmen ;  in  short,  you  must  have  a  responsible 
agent " 

"  Quite  out  of  the  question  !  "  the  general  hastily  broke  in 
in  alarm.  "  But  why  should  I  have  no  bidders?  " 

"Monsieur  le  Comte,  you  have  enemies  in  the  place." 

"  And  who  are  they  ?  " 

"  Monsieur  Gaubertin,  first  and  foremost " 

"  Oh  !     Is  that  the  scamp  who  was  here  before  your  time  ?  " 

"Not  so  loud,  Monsieur  le  Comte!  "  entreated  Sibilet  in 
terror;  " for  pity's  sake,  do  not  speak  so  loud  !  My  servant- 
girl  may  overhear " 

"What!"  returned  the  general,  "cannot  I  talk  on  my 
own  property  of  a  scoundrel  who  robbed  me?  " 

"  If  you  value  a  quiet  life,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  come  further 
away  !  Now;  Gaubertin  is  mayor  of  Ville-aux-Fayes." 

"  Ha  !  I  wish  Ville-aux-Fayes  joy  of  him  with  all  my  heart. 
Thunder  of  heaven  !  He  is  a  nice  mayor  for  a  place  ! " 

"  Do  me  the  honor  of  listening  to  me,  Monsieur  le  Comte, 
and,  believe  me,  we  have  a  most  serious  matter  in  hand,  the 
question  of  your  future  here." 

"  I  am  listening.     Let  us  sit  down  on  this  bench." 

"  When  you  dismissed  Gaubertin,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  he 
had  to  do  something,  for  he  was  not  rich " 

"  Not  rich !  and  he  was  helping  himself  here  to  twenty 
thousand  francs  a  year  ! ' ' 

"  Monsieur  le  Comte,  I  am  not  setting  out  to  justify  his 
conduct,"  Sibilet  resumed.  "I  should  like  to  see  the  Aigues 
prosper,  if  it  were  only  to  establish  the  fact  of  Gaubertin's 
dishonesty ;  but  we  must  not  abuse  him,  he  is  the  most 


THE  PEASANTRY.  131 

dangerous  rascal  in  all  Burgundy,  and  he  is  in  a  position  to 
do  you  a  mischief." 

"  How  ?  "  asked  the  general,  grown  thoughtful. 

"  Gaubertin,  such  as  you  see  him,  is  the  general  agent  of 
the  wood  merchants,  and  controls  one-third  of  the  Paris 
timber  trade ;  he  directs  the  whole  business  in  wood — the 
growth,  felling,  storage,  canal-transport,  and  salvage.  He  is 
a  constant  employer  of  labor,  and  can  dictate  his  own  terms. 
It  has  taken  him  three  years  to  make  this  position,  but  he  has 
fortified  himself  in  it  by  now;  he  is  the  man  of  all  the  timber 
merchants  and  he  treats  them  all  alike.  He  has  the  whole 
thing  cut  and  dried  for  their  benefit ;  their  business  is  done 
more  smoothly  and  with  less  working  expenses  than  if  each 
man  employed  a  separate  agent,  as  they  used  to  do.  For  one 
thing,  he  has  weeded  out  competition  so  thoroughly  that  he 
has  a  monopoly  of  contracts  for  timber,  and  the  Crown 
forests  are  his  preserves.  The  right  of  cutting  timber  in  the 
Crown  forests  is  put  up  periodically  to  auction,  but  practically 
it  is  in  the  hands  of  Gaubertin's  clique  of  timber  merchants, 
for  by  this  time  nobody  is  big  enough  to  bid  against  them. 
Last  year  Monsieur  Mariotte  of  Auxerre,  egged  on  by  the 
Crown  ranger,  tried  to  outbid  Gaubertin.  Gaubertin  let  him 
have  the  trees  at  the  ordinary  price  to  begin  with ;  then  when 
it  came  to  felling  the  woods  the  local  wood-cutters  wanted  such 
wages  that  Monsieur  Mariotte  had  to  send  over  to  Auxerre  for 
men,  and  when  they  came  the  Ville-aux-Fayes  men  set  upon 
them.  Then  the  ringleader  of  the  union  men  and  the  leader 
of  the  brawl  got  into  the  police  court.  The  proceedings  cost 
money,  and  Monsieur  Mariotte  had  to  pay  all  the  costs,  for 
the  men  had  not  a  picayune  centime.  And  let  me  tell  you 
this,  by-the-by  (for  you  will  have  all  the  poor  in  the  canton 
set  against  you) — you  make  nothing  by  taking  the  law  of  poor 
folk  except  ill-will,  if  you  happen  to  live  among  them. 

"  And  that  was  not  the  end  of  it.     When  poor  old  Mariotte 
(a  decent  soul)  came  to  reckon  it  all  over,  he  was  out  of  pocket 


132  THE  PEASANTRY. 

by  the  contract.  He  had  to  pay  money  down  for  everything, 
and  to  sell  for  credit ;  Gaubertin  delivered  timber  at  unheard- 
of  prices  to  ruin  his  competitor ;  he  actually  gave  it  away  at 
five  per  cent,  below  cost  price,  and  poor  old  Mariotte's  credit 
was  badly  shaken.  In  fact,  Gaubertin  is  still  after  him  to  this 
day,  and  pesters  him  to  that  degree  that  he  is  going  to  leave 
not  merely  Auxerre,  they  say,  but  the  department  too,  and  he 
is  doing  wisely.  So,  at  one  blow,  the  growers  were  sacrificed 
for  a  long  time  to  come  to  the  timber  merchants,  who  settle 
the  prices  among  themselves,  like  brokers  and  furniture  dealers 
in  the  Paris  salesrooms.  But  Gaubertin  saves  the  growers  so 
much  bother  that  it  is  worth  their  while  to  employ  him." 

"And  how  so?  "  asked  the  general. 

"  In  the  first  place,"  said  Sibilet,  "  anything  that  simplifies 
business  is  sooner  or  later  to  the  interest  of  all  concerned. 
Then  the  owners  of  forests  are  sure  of  their  money.  That  is 
the  great  thing,  as  you  will  find  out,  in  all  sales  of  produce. 
And,  lastly,  Monsieur  Gaubertin  is  like  a  father  to  the  laborers ; 
he  pays  them  good  wages  and  finds  them  constant  work ;  and 
as  the  wood-cutters'  families  live  in  the  neighborhood,  there 
is  no  damage  done  to  the  woods  which  belong  to  Gaubertin's 
timber  merchants,  or  on  the  estates  of  Messieurs  de  Soulanges 
and  de  Ronquerolles  and  others  who  confide  their  interests  to 
him.  The  peasants  pick  up  the  dead-wood,  and  that  is  all." 

"  That  rogue  Gaubertin  has  not  wasted  his  time !  "  cried 
the  general. 

"Oh!  he  is  a  sharp  man  !  "  said  Sibilet.  "  He  is,  as  he 
puts  it,  steward  of  the  best  half  of  the  department  now,  in- 
stead of  steward  of  the  Aigues.  He  charges  every  one  a  tri- 
fling percentage,  but  that  mere  trifle  on  a  couple  of  million 
francs  brings  him  in  forty  or  fifty  thousand  francs  a  year. 
'  The  hearths  of  Paris  pay  for  all,'  says  he.  That  is  your 
enemy,  M.  le  Comte.  So  my  advice  to  you  is  to  come  to 
terms  with  him.  He  is  hand  and  glove,  as  you  know,  with 
Soudry,  the  police  sergeant  at  Soulanges,  and  with  Monsieur 


THE  PEASANTRY.  133 

Rigou,  our  mayor  at  Blangy ;  the  rural  police  are  his  tools, 
so  that  it  will  be  hard  to  put  down  the  pilfering  which  is 
eating  you  up.  Your  woods  have  been  ruined,  more  particu- 
larly during  the  last  two  years;  so  Messieurs  Gravelot  have  a 
chance  in  their  favor,  for  they  say  that,  *  by  the  terms  of  the 
lease,  you  were  to  pay  the  expenses  of  protecting  your  prop- 
erty ;  you  are  not  protecting  it,  so  you  are  doing  us  an  injury, 
and  you  must  make  good  our  damages.'  Which  is  fair  enough, 
but  it  is  no  reason  why  they  should  gain  the  day." 

"You  must  resign  yourself  to  a  lawsuit  and  to  a  loss  of 
money  over  it  to  prevent  other  lawsuits  in  future,"  said  the 
general. 

"You  will  delight  Gaubertin,"  retorted  Sibilet. 

"How?" 

"If  you  go  to  law  with  the  Gravelots,  you  will  measure 
yourself  man  to  man  with  Gaubertin,  who  represents  them ; 
he  would  like  nothing  so  much  as  that  lawsuit.  As  he  says, 
he  flatters  himself  that  he  will  trail  you  on  to  the  Court  of 
Appeal." 

"Ah!  the  scoundrel !  the " 

"Then  if  you  fell  and  sell  your  own  timber,"  pursued 
Sibilet,  turning  the  dagger  in  the  wound,  "you  will  be  in  the 
hands  of  the  laborers,  who  will  ask  you  '  fancy  prices,'  instead 
of  '  trade  wages ; '  they  will  '  overweight '  you,  which  means 
that  they  will  put  you  in  such  a  position  that,  like  poor  old 
Mariotte,  you  will  have  to  sell  at  a  loss.  If  you  try  to  find  a 
lessee,  no  one  will  make  you  an  offer,  for  it  stands  to  reason 
that  no  one  will  run  the  risk  for  a  private  estate  that  Mariotte 
ran  for  the  Crown  Forest.  Moreover,  suppose  that  the  old 
man  goes  to  complain  about  his  losses  to  the  Department. 
There  is  an  official  there,  much  such  a  man  as  your  humble 
servant  used  to  be  in  his  assessor  days,  a  worthy  gentleman  in 
a  threadbare  coat,  who  sits  and  reads  a  newspaper  at  a  table. 
He  is  neither  more  nor  less  soft-hearted,  whether  they  pay 
him  twelve  hundred  or  twelve  thousand  francs.  Talk  to  the 


134  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Inland  Revenue  Department,  in  the  person  of  this  gentleman, 
of  allowances  and  reductions !  He  will  answer  you,  'Fidd'lc- 
de-dee  ! '  while  he  cuts  his  pen.  You  are  an  outlaw,  Monsieur 
le  Comte." 

"  What  is  to  be  done?"  cried  the  general.  His  blood 
boiled  ;  he  strode  up  and  down  before  the  bench. 

"  Monsieur  le  Comte,"  said  Sibilet  with  brutal  frankness, 
"what  I  am  about  to  say  is  not  in  my  own  interests — you 
should  sell  the  Aigues  and  leave  the  neighborhood." 

At  these  words  the  general  started  back  as  if  a  bullet  had 
struck  him.  He  looked  at  Sibilet  with  a  diplomatic  expres- 
sion. 

"  Is  a  general  of  the  Imperial  Guard  to  run  away  from  such 
rogues ;  and  after  Madame  la  Comtesse  has  taken  a  liking  to 
the  Aigues?  Before  I  would  do  that  I  would  force  Gaubertin 
to  fight  me,  give  him  a  box  on  the  ears  in  the  market-place  of 
Ville-aux-Fayes,  and  kill  him  like  a  dog." 

"  Gaubertin  is  not  such  a  fool  as  to  come  into  collision  with 
you.  And,  beside,  so  important  a  person  as  the  mayor  of 
Ville-aux-Fayes  cannot  be  insulted  with  impunity." 

"  I  will  make  a  beggar  of  him ;  the  Troisvilles  will  back  me 
up ;  my  income  is  involved." 

"  You  will  not  succeed  in  that,  Monsieur  le  Comte ;  Gau- 
bertin has  very  long  arms.  You  would  only  put  yourself  in  an 
awkward  predicament  with  no  possible  way  out " 

"And  how  about  this  lawsuit?"  said  the  general.  "We 
must  think  of  the  present." 

"  Monsieur  le  Comte,  I  will  insure  that  you  shall  gain  it," 
said  Sibilet,  with  something  knowing  in  his  air. 

"Well  done,  Sibilet!"  said  the  general,  gripping  the 
steward's  hand.  "And  how?" 

"  You  would  gain  the  day  in  the  Court  of  Appeal  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  events.  In  my  opinion,  the  Gravelots  are 
in  the  right,  but  that  is  not  enough,  the  case  is  not  decided 
upon  its  merits ;  you  must  be  technically  in  the  right  as  well. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  135 

The  Gravelots  have  not  observed  the  proper  formalities,  and  a 
case  always  turns  upon  a  question  of  that  kind.  The  Gravelots 
ought  to  have  given  you  notice  to  look  after  your  woods 
better.  Then  you  cannot  come  down  upon  people  for  allow- 
ances extending  over  a  period  of  nine  years  at  the  expiration 
of  a  lease;  there  is  a  guarding  clause  inserted  in  the  lease  to 
prevent  that.  You  will  lose  your  case  at  Ville-aux-Fayes ; 
perhaps  you  will  lose  it  again  in  the  higher  court,  but  you  will 
gain  the  day  in  Paris.  You  will  be  put  to  ruinous  expense ; 
there  will  be  valuations  which  will  cost  a  great  deal.  If  you 
gain  the  case,  you  will  spend  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand  francs 
at  least  over  it ;  but  you  will  gain  the  day  if  you  are  bent  upon 
so  doing.  The  lawsuit  will  not  mend  matters  with  the  Grave- 
lots;  it  will  cost  them  even  more.  You  will  be  a  bugbear  to 
them,  you  will  get  a  name  for  being  litigious,  you  will  be 
slandered,  but  you  will  gain  the  day " 

"  What  is  to  be  done?  "  repeated  the  general.  If  Sibilet's 
remarks  had  touched  upon  the  most  heart-burning  questions, 
they  could  not  have  produced  more  effect  on  Montcornet.  He 
bethought  himself  of  that  thrashing  administered  to  Gaubertin, 
and  heartily  wished  that  he  had  laid  the  horsewhip  about  his 
own  shoulders.  He  turned  a  face  on  fire  to  Sibilet,  who  could 
read  all  his  torments  plainly  there. 

"What  is  to  be  done,  Monsieur  le  Comte?"  echoed  the 
other.  "There  is  only  one  thing  to  be  done.  Compound 
with  the  Gravelots,  but  you  cannot  do  it  in  person.  I  must 
act  as  if  I  were  robbing  you.  Now,  when  all  our  comfort  and 
all  our  prospects  lie  in  our  integrity,  it  is  rather  hard  for  us 
poor  devils  to  submit  to  appear  dishonest.  We  are  alwnys 
judged  by  appearances.  Gaubertin,  in  his  time,  saved  Made- 
moiselle Laguerre's  life,  and  he,  to  all  appearance,  robbed 
her;  but  she  rewarded  him  for  his  devotion  by  putting  him 
down  in  her  will  for  a  jewel  worth  ten  thousand  francs,  which 
Madame  Gaubertin  wears  on  her  forehead  at  this  day." 

The  general  gave  Sibilet  a  second  glance,  at  least  as  diplo- 


136  THE   PEASANTRY. 

matic  as  the  first,  but  the  steward  did  not  seem  to  feel  the 
suspicion  lurking  beneath  smiling  good-nature. 

"My  dishonesty  will  put  Monsieur  Gaubertin  in  such  high 
good-humor  that  I  shall  gain  his  good-will,"  continued  Sib- 
ilet.  "  He  will  listen  with  all  his  ears,  too,  when  I  come  to 
lay  this  before  him,  'I  can  get  twenty  thousand  francs  out  of 
the  count  for  the  Gravelots,  provided  that  they  will  go  halves 
with  me.'  If  your  opponents  consent  to  that,  I  will  bring 
you  back  the  ten  thousand  francs.  You  only  lose  ten  thou- 
sand, you  save  appearances,  and  there  is  an  end  of  the  law- 
suit." 

"You  are  a  good  fellow,  Sibilet,"  said  the  general,  grasp- 
ing the  steward's  hand.  "If  you  can  arrange  for  the  future 
as  well  as  for  the  present,  I  consider  that  you  are  a  jewel  of  a 
land-steward ' ' 

"As  to  the  future,  you  will  not  starve  if  the  wood  is  not 
felled  for  the  next  two  or  three  years.  Begin  by  looking  after 
your  woods.  Between  then  and  now  a  good  deal  of  water 
will  have  flowed  down  the  Avonne,  Gaubertin  may  die,  or 
he  may  have  made  enough  to  retire  upon.  In  short,  you 
will  have  time  to  find  a  competitor ;  the  loaf  is  big  enough  to 
divide;  you  will  find  another  Gaubertin  to  match  him." 

"Sibilet,"  said  the  old  warrior,  amazed  at  the  variety  of 
solutions,  "  I  will  give  you  a  thousand  crowns  if  you  bring  the 
matter  to  an  end  in  this  way ;  and  then  we  will  think  things 
over." 

"Look  after  your  woods  before  all  things,  Monsieur  le 
Comte.  Go  and  see  for  yourself  what  the  peasants  have  done 
there  during  the  two  years  while  you  have  been  away.  What 
could  I  do  ?  I  am  a  steward,  not  a  keeper.  You  want  three 
foresters  and  a  mounted  patrol  to  look  after  the  Aigues." 

"We  will  defend  ourselves.  If  war  it  is  to  be,  we  will 
fight.  That  does  not  frighten  me,"  said  Montcornet,  rubbing 
his  hands. 

"It  is  a  money  war,"  said  Sibilet,   "and  that  will  seem 


THE  PEASANTRY.  137 

harder  to  you  than  the  other  kind.  You  can  kill  men,  but 
there  is  no  killing  men's  interests.  You  will  fight  it  out  on  a 
battlefield  where  all  landowners  must  fight — called  realization. 
It  is  nothing  to  grow  this  and  that ;  you  must  sell  your  pro- 
duce; and  if  you  mean  to  sell  it,  you  must  keep  on  good 
terms  with  everybody." 

"  I  shall  have  the  country  people  on  my  side." 

"How  so?"  queried  Sibilet. 

"By  treating  them  kindly." 

"Treat  the  peasants  kindly  and  the  townspeople  at  Sou- 
langes !  "  cried  Sibilet,  squinting  hideously,  for  one  eye 
seemed  to  gleam  more  than  the  other  with  the  irony  in  his 
words.  "  You  do  not  know,  sir,  what  you  are  setting  about. 
Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  would  be  crucified  there  a  second  time. 
If  you  want  a  quiet  life,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  do  as  the  late 
Mademoiselle  Laguerre  did — and  let  them  rob  you,  or  else 
strike  terror  into  them.  The  people,  women  and  children, 
are  all  governed  in  the  same  way — by  terror.  That  was  the 
grand  secret  of  the  Convention  and  of  the  Emperor." 

"Oh,  come  now!  have  we  fallen  among  thieves  here?" 
cried  Montcornet. 

Adeline  came  out  to  them. 

"Your  breakfast  is  waiting,  dear,"  she  said  to  Sibilet.  "I 
beg  your  pardon,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  but  he  has  had  nothing 
this  morning,  and  he  has  been  as  far  as  Ronquerolles  with 
some  corn." 

"  Go,  by  all  means,  Sibilet." 

Montcornet  was  up  and  out  before  day  next  morning.  He 
chose  to  return  by  the  Avonne  gate  to  have  a  chat  with  his 
one  forester,  and  to  sound  the  man's  disposition. 

Some  seven  or  eight  acres  of  forest  lay  beside  the  Avonne ; 
a  fringe  of  tall  forest  trees  had  been  left  along  the  bank  on 
either  side,  that  a  river  which  flowed  almost  in  a  straight  line 
for  three  leagues  might  preserve  its  stately  character. 


138  THE  PEASANTRY. 

The  Aigues  had  once  belonged  to  a  mistress  of  Henri  IV., 
who  loved  the  chase  as  passionately  as  the  Bearnais.  It  was 
she  who  built,  in  1593,  the  steep,  single-span  bridge  over  the 
Avonne  to  cross  over  to  the  much  larger  forest  purchased  for 
her  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  The  Avonne  gate  had 
been  built  at  the  same  time  as  a  rendezvous  for  the  hunt,  and 
every  one  knows  that  architects  in  those  times  lavished  all 
magnificence  upon  edifices  reared  for  this  greatest  pleasure  of 
kings  and  princes.  Six  avenues  met  before  it  in  a  semicircular 
space,  and  in  the  centre  of  the  crescent  rose  an  obelisk  sur- 
mounted by  a  sun  once  gilded,  with  the  arms  of  Navarre  on 
the  one  side,  and  those  of  the  Comtesse  de  Moret  on  the 
other. 

A  corresponding  crescent-shaped  space  by  the  Avonne  com- 
municated with  the  first  by  a  broad,  straight  walk,  whence 
you  saw  the  angular  crown  of  the  Venetian-looking  bridge. 
Between  two  handsome  iron  railings  (resembling  the  magnifi- 
cent ironwork  which  used  to  surround  the  Jardin  de  la  Place 
Royale  in  Paris,  now,  alas !  destroyed)  stood  a  hunting-lodge 
built  of  brick,  with  stone  string-courses  of  the  same  depressed- 
pyramid  pattern  as  at  the  castle,  stone  facings  likewise  orna- 
mented, and  a  high-pitched  roof. 

This  bygone  style,  that  gave  the  house  the  look  of  a  royal 
hunting-lodge,  is  only  suitable  in  towns  for  prisons,  but  here 
the  background  of  forest  trees  set  off  its  peculiarly  grandiose 
character.  The  kennels,  pheasant-houses,  and  the  old  quarters 
of  falconers  and  prickers  were  screened  by  a  blind  wall.  The 
place  had  once  been  the  pride  of  Burgundy ;  now  it  lay  almost 
in  ruins. 

In  1595  a  royal  train  set  out  from  that  princely  hunting- 
lodge,  preceded  by  the  great  hounds  beloved  of  Rubens  and 
Paul  Veronese  ;  the  horses  that  pawed  the  ground  are  now 
only  seen  in  Wouvermans'  wonderful  pictures — mighty  white 
beasts  with  a  bluish  shade  on  the  heavy,  glossy  hindquarters. 
After  these  followed  footmen  in  gorgeous  array,  and  the  fore- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  139 

ground  was  enlivened  by  the  huntsmen  in  yellow  breeches 
and  high  topboots  who  fill  Van  de  Meulen's  great  canvasses. 
The  stone  obelisk  was  reared  to  commemorate  that  day  when 
the  Bearnais  went  hunting  with  the  beautiful  Comtesse  de 
Moret,  and  bore  the  date  beneath  the  arms  of  Navarre.  Na- 
varre, not  France ;  for  the  jealous  mistress,  whose  son  was 
declared  to  be  a  prince  of  the  blood,  could  not  endure  that 
the  arms  of  France  should  meet  her  eves  to  reproach  her. 

But  in  1823,  when  the  general  saw  the  splendid  monument, 
the  roof  was  green  with  moss  on  every  side.  The  octagonal 
glass-panes  were  dropping  out  of  the  loosened  leads,  the  win- 
dows looked  half-blind.  The  stones  of  the  weather-worn 
string-courses  seemed  to  cry  out,  with  countless  gaping  mouths, 
against  such  desecration.  Yellow  wall-flowers  blossomed  among 
the  balusters ;  the  ivy  stems  slipped  pale  down-covered  claws 
into  every  cranny. 

Everything  spoke  of  a  mean  neglect.  Selfishness,  regard- 
less of  those  to  come  after  it,  leaves  its  stamp  on  all  its  present 
possessions.  Two  windows  above  were  stopped  up  with  hay ; 
one  window  on  the  first  floor  gave  a  glimpse  of  a  room  full  of 
tools  and  firewood,  and  a  cow's  muzzle  thrust  from  another 
informed  the  beholder  that,  to  save  himself  the  trouble  of 
going  to  and  fro  between  the  pheasant-house  and  the  lodge, 
Courtecuisse  had  made  a  cowhouse  of  the  great  hall,  where 
the  armorial  bearings  of  every  owner  of  the  Aigues  were 
painted  on  the  paneled  ceiling. 

The  whole  approach  to  the  house  was  disfigured  by  a  col- 
lection of  dirty,  black  palings  marking  the  limits  of  pigstyes 
roofed  with  planks,  and  little  square  pens  for  fowls  and  ducks. 
Every  six  months  the  accumulated  filth  was  cleared  away. 
Sundry  rags  were  drying  on  the  brambles,  which  had  thrust 
themselves  up  here  and  there 

As  the  general  came  up  the  avenue  from  the  bridge,  he  saw 
Courtecuisse's  wife  scouring  the  earthen  pipkin  in  which  she 


140  THE  PEASANTRY. 

had  just  made  coffee.  The  keeper  himself  was  sitting  on  a 
chair  in  the  sun  looking  on,  much  as  a  savage  might  watch  his 
squaw.  He  turned  his  head  at  the  sound  of  footsteps,  saw  the 
count  his  master,  and  looked  foolish. 

"Well,  Courtecuisse,  my  boy,  I  don't  wonder  that  some 
one  else  cuts  down  my  wood  before  the  Messrs.  Gravelot  can 
get  it.  Do  you  take  your  place  for  a  sinecure  ?  " 

"  Upon  my  word,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  I  have  been  out  in 
your  woods  for  so  many  nights  that  I  have  got  a  chill.  I  was 
feeling  so  bad  this  morning  that  my  wife  has  been  warming  a 
poultice  for  me;  she  is  cleaning  the  pipkin  now,"  said  the 
sheepish  forester. 

"My  good  fellow,"  remarked  the  general,  "I  only  know 
of  one  complaint  which  needs  poulticing  with  hot  coffee,  and 
that  is  hunger.  Listen,  you  rogue  !  Yesterday  I  went  through 
the  woods  belonging  to  Messrs,  de  Ronquerolles  and  de  Sou- 
langes,  and  then  through  my  own.  Theirs  are  properly  looked 
after,  and  mine  is  in  a  pitiable  state." 

"Ah  !  Monsieur  le  Comte,  they  have  been  here  this  ever  so 
long,  they  have ;  people  let  them  alone.  Would  you  have  me 
fight  with  half-a-dozen  communes  ?  I  value  my  life  even  more 
than  your  woods.  Any  man  who  tried  to  look  after  your 
woods  properly  would  get  a  bullet  through  his  head  by  way 
of  wages  in  some  corner  of  the  forest." 

"  Coward  !  "  cried  the  general,  choking  down  the  wrath 
kindled  by  Courtecuisse's  insolence.  "  It  has  been  a  splendid 
night,  but  it  has  cost  me  three  hundred  francs  at  this  moment, 
and  a  thousand  francs  in  claims  for  damages  to  come.  Things 
must  be  done  differently,  or  you  shall  go  out  of  this.  All  past 
offenses  should  be  forgiven.  Here  are  my  conditions :  you 
shall  have  all  the  fines  and  three  francs  for  each  conviction. 
If  I  do  not  find  that  this  plan  pays  me  better,  you  shall  go 
about  your  business;  while  if  you  serve  me  well,  and  manage 
to  put  down  the  pilfering,  you  shall  have  a  hundred  crowns  a 
year.  Think  it  over.  Here  are  six  ways,"  he  went  on,  point- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  141 

ing  to  the  alleys,  "like  me,  you  must  take  one;  I  am  not 
afraid  of  bullets.     Try  to  find  the  right  one." 

Courtecuisse,  forty-six  years  of  age,  a  short  man  with  a  full- 
moon  countenance,  dearly  loved  to  do  nothing.  He  reckoned 
upon  spending  the  rest  of  his  days  in  the  hunting-lodge — his 
lodge.  His  two  cows  grazed  in  the  forest ;  he  had  fuel  for  his 
needs ;  he  worked  in  his  garden  instead  of  running  about  after 
delinquents.  His  neglect  of  his  duties  suited  Gaubertin,  and 
Courtecuisse  and  Gaubertin  understood  each  other.  So  he 
never  harassed  the  wood-stealers  except  to  gratify  his  own 
petty  hatreds.  He  persecuted  girls  who  would  not  accede  to 
his  wishes,  and  people  whom  he  disliked  ;  but  it  was  a  long 
while  now  since  he  had  borne  any  one  a  grudge,  his  easy  ways 
had  won  popularity  for  him. 

At  the  Grand-I-Vert  a  knife  and  fork  were  always  set  for 
Courtecuisse,  the  faggot-stealers  were  no  longer  recalcitrant. 
Both  he  and  his  wife  received  tribute  in  kind  from  the  marau- 
ders. His  wood  was  stacked  for  him ;  his  vines  were  layered 
and  pruned.  He  had  vassals  and  tributaries  in  all  the  delin- 
quents, in  fact. 

Almost  reassured  as  he  had  been  as  to  his  future  by  the 
words  that  Gaubertin  let  fall  a"bout  those  two  acres  to  be  his 
when  the  Aigues  should  be  sold,  he  was  rudely  awakened 
from  his  dream  by  the  general's  dry  remarks.  After  four 
years  he  stood  revealed  at  last ;  the  nature  of  the  bourgeois 
had  come  out ;  he  was  determined  to  be  cheated  no  longer. 
Courtecuisse  took  up  his  cap,  his  game-bag  and  gun,  put  on 
his  gaiters,  his  belt  stamped  with  the  brand-new  arms  of  Mont- 
cornet,  and  went  forth  to  Ville-aux-Fayes,  with  the  careless 
gait  which  hides  the  countryman's  deepest  thoughts.  He 
looked  along  the  woods  as  he  went  and  whistled  to  his  dogs. 

"You  complain  of  the  Upholsterer,"  said  Gaubertin,  when 
Courtecuisse  had  told  his  tale;  "  why,  your  fortune  is  made  ! 
What !  the  ninny  is  giving  you  three  francs  for  each  prosecu- 
tion and  all  the  fines  into  the  bargain,  is  he  ?  If  you  can 


142  THE  PEASANTRY. 

come  to  an  understanding  with  your  friends,  he  can  have 
them,  and  as  many  as  he  likes.  Prosecutions !  let  him  have 
them  by  the  hundred.  When  you  have  a  thousand  francs, 
you  will  be  able  to  buy  the  Bachelerie,  Rigou's  farm ;  you 
can  be  your  own  master  and  work  on  your  own  land,  or, 
rather,  you  can  live  at  ease  and  set  others  to  work.  Only, 
mind  this,  you  must  arrange  to  prosecute  nobody  but  those 
who  are  as  poor  as  Job.  You  cannot  shear  those  that  have  no 
wool.  Take  the  Upholsterer's  offer ;  let  him  pile  up  costs  for 
himself  if  he  has  a  liking  for  them.  Tastes  differ,  and  it 
takes  all  sorts  to  make  a  world.  There  was  old  Mariotte,  in 
spite  of  all  I  could  say,  he  liked  losses  better  than  profits." 

Courtecuisse  went  home  again,  profoundly  impressed  by 
Gaubertin's  wisdom  and  consumed  with  a  desire  to  have  a  bit 
of  land  for  himself  and  to  be  a  master  like  the  rest  at  last. 

General  Montcornet  likewise  returned,  and  on  his  way  gave 
Sibilet  an  account  of  his  expedition. 

"Quite  right,  quite  right,  Monsieur  le  Comte,"  said  the 
steward,  rubbing  his  hands,  "  but  there  must  be  no  stopping 
short  now  you  are  on  the  right  track.  The  rural  policeman 
who  allowed  the  spoliation  to  go  on  in  our  fields  ought  to  be 
changed.  It  would  be  easy  for  Monsieur  le  Comte  to  obtain 
the  appointment  of  mayor  of  the  commune,  and  to  put  some 
one  else  in  Vaudoyer's  place — some  old  soldier  who  would  not 
be  afraid  to  carry  out  orders.  A  great  landowner  should  be 
master  on  his  own  property ;  and  see  what  trouble  we  have 
with  the  present  mayor !  " 

The  mayor  of  the  commune  of  Blangy,  one  Rigou,  had  been 
a  Benedictine  monk,  but  in  the  year  i  of  the  Republic  he  had 
married  the  servant-maid  of  the  late  cur6  of  Blangy.  A  mar- 
ried monk  was  not  likely  to  find  much  favor  at  the  prefecture 
after  the  Restoration,  but  there  was  no  one  else  to  fill  his 
post,  and  in  1815  Rigou  was  still  mayor  of  Blangy.  In  1817, 
however,  the  bishop  had  sent  the  Abbe  Brossette  to  act  as 
officiating  priest  of  the  parish.  Blangy  had  done  without  a 


THE  PEASANTRY.  143 

priest  for  twenty-five  years,  and,  not  unnaturally,  a  violent 
feud  broke  out  between  the  apostate  and  the  young  churchman 
whose  character  has  been  previously  sketched. 

People  had  looked  down  upon  Rigou,  but  the  war  between 
the  mayor  and  the  parson  brought  the  former  popularity. 
Rigou  had  been  hated  by  the  peasants  for  his  usurious  schemes, 
but  now  he  was  suddenly  identified  with  their  interests,  polit- 
ical and  financial,  which  were  threatened  (as  they  imagined) 
by  the  Restoration  and  the  clergy. 

Socquard  of  the  Cafe  of  Peace  was  the  nominal  subscriber 
to  the  "  Constitutionnel,"  the  principal  Liberal  paper,  but  all 
the  local  functionaries  joined  in  the  subscription,  and  the 
journal  circulated  through  a  score  of  hands  after  it  left  the 
cafe  till,  at  the  end  of  the  week,  it  came  to  Rigou,  who  passed 
it  on  to  Langlume,  the  miller,  who  gave  the  tattered  fragments 
to  any  one  who  could  read.  The  leading  articles,  written  for 
Paris  and  the  anti-religious  canards,  were  seriously  read  and 
considered  in  the  valley  of  the  Aigues.  Rigou  became  a  hero 
after  the  pattern  of  the  "  venerable  "Abbe  Gregoire ;  and,  as 
in  the  case  of  certain  Parisian  bankers,  the  purple  cloak  of 
popularity  served  to  hide  a  multitude  of  sins. 

At  this  particular  moment,  indeed,  Rigou,  the  perjured 
monk,  was  looked  upon  as  a  local  Francis  Keller  and  a  cham- 
pion of  the  people,  though  at  no  very  remote  period  he  would 
not  have  dared  to  walk  in  the  fields  after  dark  lest  he  should  be 
trapped  and  die  an  accidental  death.  Persecution  for  political 
opinion  has  such  virtue  that  not  merely  does  it  increase  a 
man's  present  importance,  but  it  restores  innocence  to  his  past. 
Liberalism  worked  many  miracles  of  this  kind.  But  the  un- 
lucky paper,  which  had  the  wit  to  find  the  level  of  its  readers 
in  those  days,  and  to  be  as  dull,  scandalous,  gullible  and  be- 
sottedly  disloyal  as  the  ordinary  public,  of  which  the  ordinary 
rank  and  file  of  mankind  is  composed,  did,  it  may  be,  as 
much  damage  to  private  property  as  to  the  church  which  it 
Attacked. 


144  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Rigou  flattered  himself  that  a  son  of  the  people,  reared  by 
the  Revolution,  a  Bonapartist  general,  in  disgrace  to  boot, 
would  be  a  sworn  enemy  of  Bourbons  and  clericals.  But  the 
general  had  his  own  ideas,  and  had  managed  to  avoid  a  visit 
from  M.  and  Mme.  Rigou  when  he  first  came  to  the  Aigues. 

The  enormity  of  the  general's  blunder,  afterward  made 
worse  by  a  piece  of  insolence  on  the  part  of  the  countess  (the 
story  will  be  related  in  its  place)  can  only  be  recognized  after 
a  better  acquaintance  with  the  terrible  figure  of  Rigou — the 
vampire  of  the  valley. 

If  Montcornet  had  set  out  to  win  the  mayor's  good- will 
and  courted  his  friendship,  Rigou' s  influence  might  have  neu- 
tralized Gaubertin's  power.  But  far  from  making  the  over- 
tures, Montcornet  had  brought  three  several  actions  against 
the  ex-monk  in  the  court  of  Ville-aux-Fayes ;  Rigou  had 
already  gained  one  case,  but  the  other  two  were  still  in 
suspense.  Then  Montcornet's  mind  had  been  so  busied  over 
schemes  for  the  gratification  of  his  vanity,  so  full  of  his  mar- 
riage, that  he  had  forgotten  Rigou ;  but  now  when  Sibilet  ad- 
vised him  to  take  Rigou's  place  himself,  he  called  for  post- 
horses  and  went  straight  to  the  prefect. 

The  general  and  the  prefect,  Count  Martial  de  la  Roche- 
Hugon,  had  been  friends  since  the  year  1804.  The  purchase 
of  the  Aigues  had  been  determined  by  a  hint  let  fall  in  Paris 
by  the  councilor  of  State.  La  Roche-Hugon  had  been  a  pre- 
fect under  Napoleon,  and  remained  a  prefect  under  the  Bour- 
bons, paying  court  to  the  bishop  so  as  to  keep  his  place. 
Now  his  lordship  had  asked  for  Rigou's  removal  not  once  but 
many  times,  and  Martial,  who  knew  perfectly  well  how  mat- 
ters stood  in  the  commune,  was  only  too  delighted  by  the 
general's  request.  In  a  month's  time,  Montcornet  was  mayor 
of  Blangy. 

While  Montcornet  was  staying  with  his  friend  at  the  pre- 
fecture, it  happened  naturally  enough  that  one  Groison,  a  sub- 
altern officer  of  the  old  Imperial  Guard,  came  thither  about 


THE  PEASANTRY.  145 

his  pension,  which  had  been  stopped  on  some  pretext.  The 
general  had  once  already  done  the  man  a  service,  and,  recol- 
lecting this,  the  gallant  cavalry  officer  poured  out  the  story  of 
his  woes.  He  had  nothing  whatever.  Montcornet  under- 
took to  obtain  the  pension,  and  offered  Groison  the  post  of 
rural  policeman  at  Blangy,  and  a  way  at  the  same  time  of  re- 
paying the  obligation  by  devotion  to  his  patron's  interests. 
So  the  new  mayor  and  the  new  rural  policeman  came  into  office 
together,  and,  as  may  be  imagined,  the  general  gave  weighty 
counsel  to  his  lieutenant. 

Vaudoyer,  whose  bread  was  thus  taken  out  of  his  mouth, 
was  a  peasant  born  on  the  Ronquerolles  estate.  He  was  the 
ordinary  rural  policeman,  fit  for  nothing  but  to  dawdle  about 
and  to  make  use  of  his  position,  so  that  he  was  made  much  of 
and  cajoled  by  the  peasants,  who  ask  no  better  than  to  bribe 
subaltern  authority  and  outpost-sentinels  of  property.  Vau- 
doyer knew  Soudry ;  for  a  police  sergeant  in  the  gendarmerie 
fulfills  quasi-judicial  functions,  and  the  rural  police  naturally 
act  as  detectives  if  required.  Soudry  sent  his  man  to  Gau- 
bertin,  who  gave  a  warm  welcome  to  an  old  acquaintance, 
and  the  pair  discussed  Vaudoyer's  wrongs  over  a  friendly 
glass. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  said  the  mayor  of  Vive-aux-Fayes,  who 
could  suit  himself  to  his  company,  "  the  thing  that  has  hap- 
pened to  you  is  in  store  for  us  all.  The  nobles  have  come 
back  again,  and  the  Emperor's  nobles  are  making  common 
cause  with  them.  They  mean  to  grind  the  people  down,  to 
establish  the  old  customs  and  to  take  away  our  property ;  but 
we  are  Burgundians,  we  must  defend  ourselves  and  send  those 
Arminacs  back  to  Paris.  You  go  back  to  Blangy ;  you  can 
be  watchman  there  for  Monsieur  Polissard,  who  has  taken  the 
lease  of  the  Ronquerolles  woods.  Never  mind,  my  lad,  I  will 
find  you  plenty  of  work  all  the  year  round.  But  there  is  to 
be  no  trespassing  there,  mind  you  ;  the  woods  belong  to  us, 
and  that  would  spoil  it  all.  Send  on  all  '  wood-cutters '  to 
10 


146  THE  PEASANTRY. 

the  Aigues.  And  lastly,  if  there  is  any  sale  for  faggots,  tell 
the  people  to  buy  of  us  and  not  of  the  Aigties.  You  will  be 
rural  policeman  again;  this  won't  last  long.  The  general 
will  soon  be  sick  of  living  among  thieves.  Did  you  know 
that  yonder  Upholsterer  called  me  a  thief?  And  I  the  son 
of  one  of  the  most  honest  Republicans  !  and  the  son-in-law  of 
Mouchon,  the  famous  representative  of  the  people,  who  died 
without  leaving  a  penny  to  pay  for  his  funeral !  " 

The  general  raised  his  rural  policeman's  salary  to  three 
hundred  francs  a  year.  He  had  a  mairie  built  in  Blangy,  and 
installed  Groison  in  the  premises.  Then  he  found  a  wife  for 
that  functionary  in  the  orphan  daughter  of  one  of  his  own 
little  tenants  who  owned  three  acres  of  vineyard.  Groison 
felt  a  doglike  affection  for  his  master.  His  fidelity  was  ad- 
mitted on  all  sides,  and  Groison  was  feared  and  respected, 
but  much  as  an  unpopular  captain  is  respected  and  feared  by 
his  crew.  The  peasantry  shunned  him  as  if  he  had  been  a 
leper.  They  were  silent  when  he  came  among  them,  or  they 
disguised  their  dislike  under  an  appearance  of  banter.  Against 
such  numbers  he  was  powerless. 

The  delinquents  amused  themselves  by  inventing  misde- 
meanors of  which  no  cognizance  could  be  taken,  and  the  old 
warrior  chafed  at  his  impotence.  For  Groison  his  functions 
united  the  attractions  of  guerilla  warfare  with  the  pleasures  of 
the  chase.  He  hunted  down  offenders.  But  war  had  instilled 
into  him  the  sportsmanlike  instinct  of  acting  openly  and 
above-board,  as  it  were,  and  he  loathed  the  underhand  schem- 
ings  and  thievish  dexterity  which  caused  him  continual  morti- 
fication. He  very  soon  found  out  that  the  property  of  other 
landlords  was  respected,  that  it  was  only  at  the  Aigues  that 
this  pilfering  went  on,  and  he  felt  sincere  contempt  for  a 
peasantry  ungrateful  enough  to  rob  a  general  of  the  Empire, 
a  man  so  essentially  kind-hearted  and  generous.  Hate  was 
soon  added  to  contempt.  But  in  vain  did  he  try  to  be  omni- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  147 

present ;  he  could  not  be  everywhere  at  once ;  and  the  de- 
linquencies went  on  all  over  the  woods  at  the  same  time. 
Groison  made  it  plain  to  the  general  that  he  must  organize 
a  complete  system  of  defense  ;  his  utmost  zeal,  he  said,  was 
insufficient  to  cope  with  the  ill-will  of  the  population  of  the 
valley,  and  he  revealed  its  extent. 

"  There  is  something  behind  this,  general,"  he  said  ;  "  these 
people  are  too  bold,  they  are  afraid  of  nothing ;  it  is  as  if 
they  reckoned  on  Providence." 

"  We  shall  see,"  said  the  count. 

Unlucky  words !  A  great  statesman  does  not  conjugate 
the  verb  "  to  see  "  in  the  future  tense. 

At  that  time  Montcornet  had  something  else  on  his  mind, 
a  difficulty  more  pressing,  as  it  seemed  to  him.  He  must 
find  some  one  to  take  his  place  as  mayor  while  he  was  absent 
in  Paris,  and  a  mayor  must,  of  necessity,  be  able  to  read  and 
write.  Looking  over  the  whole  commune,  he  found  but  one 
man  to  answer  this  description — this  was  Langlume,  the  miller. 
He  could  not  well  have  made  a  worse  choice. 

In  the  first  place,  the  interests  of  the  general-mayor  and  the 
miller-deputy-mayor  were  diametrically  opposed  ;  and,  in  the 
second,  Langlume  was  mixed  up  in  several  shady  transactions 
with  Rigou,  who  lent  him  money  in  the  way  of  business.  The 
miller  used  to  buy  the  right  of  pasture  for  his  horses  in  the 
fields ;  thanks  to  his  machinations,  indeed,  he  had  a  monopoly, 
for  Sibilet  could  not  find  another  purchaser.  All  the  grazing 
land  in  the  valley  commanded  good  prices,  but  the  fields  at 
the  Aigues,  the  best  land  of  all,  were  left  to  the  last  and  fetched 
the  least. 

So  Langlume  was  appointed  deputy-mayor  for  the  time 
being,  but  in  France  "  for  the  time  being  "  practically  means 
"once  for  all,"  though  Frenchmen  are  credited  with  a  love 
of  change.  Langlume,  counseled  by  Rigou,  feigned  devotion 
to  the  general's  interests,  and  became  deputy-mayor  about  the 


148  THE  PEASANTRY. 

time  selected  by  the  omnipotent  chronicler  for  the  beginning 
of  the  drama. 

As  soon  as  the  new  mayor  had  turned  his  back,  Rigou,  who 
of  course  was  on  the  Council,  had  it  all  his  own  way  at  the 
Board,  and  the  resolutions  which  he  passed  there  were  by  no 
means  in  the  general's  interest.  He  voted  money  for  schemes 
purely  for  the  benefit  of  the  peasants,  though  the  Aigues  must 
pay  most  of  the  rates,  and,  indeed,  paid  two-thirds  of  the 
taxes,  or  he  refused  grants  of  money  which  were  really  needed 
for  supplementing  the  abbe's  stipend,  for  rebuilding  the  par- 
sonage, or  wages  (sic)  for  a  schoolmaster. 

"If  the  peasants  knew  how  to  read  and  write,  what  would 
become  of  us?"  said  Langlume,  with  ingenuous  frankness. 
The  Abbe  Brossette  had  tried  to  induce  a  brother  of  the  order 
of  the  Doctrine  chretienne  to  come  to  Blangy,  and  the  miller 
was  endeavoring  to  justify  to  the  general  the  anti-Liberal 
course  taken  by  the  Council. 

The  general  returned  from  Paris,  and  so  delighted  was  he 
with  Groison's  behavior  that  he  began  to  look  up  old  soldiers  of 
the  Imperial  Guard.  He  meant  to  organize  his  defense  of  the 
Aigues  and  put  it  on  a  formidable  footing.  By  dint  of  looking 
about  him  and  making  inquiries  among  his  friends  and  officers 
on  half-pay,  he  unearthed  Michaud,  an  old  quartermaster  in 
the  cuirassiers  of  the  Guard,  "a  tough  morsel,"  in  soldiers' 
language,  a  simile  suggested  by  camp  cookery,  when  a  bean 
here  and  there  resists  the  softening  influences  of  the  boiling 
pot.  Michaud  picked  out  three  of  his  acquaintances  to  be 
foresters,  without  fear  or  blame. 

The  first  of  these,  Steingel  by  name,  was  a  thorough  Al- 
sacian,  an  illegitimate  son  of  the  General  Steingel  who  feH 
during  the  time  of  Bonaparte's  early  successes  in  Italy. 
Steingel  the  younger  was  tall  and  strong,  a  soldier  of  a  type 
accustomed,  like  the  Russians,  to  complete  and  passive  obedi- 
ence. Nothing  stopped  him  in  his  duty.  If  he  had  had  his 
orders,  he  would  have  laid  hands  coolly  on  emperor  or  pope. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  149 

He  did  not  know  what  danger  meant.  He  had  served  in  the 
ranks  with  undaunted  courage  for  sixteen  years,  and  had  never 
received  a  scratch.  He  slept  out  of  doors  or  in  his  bed  with 
stoical  indifference  and,  at  any  aggravation  of  discomfort, 
merely  remarked,  "  That  is  how  things  are  to-day,  it  seems  !  " 

Vatel,  the  second,  was  the  child  of  his  regiment ;  a  corporal 
of  light  infantry,  gay  as  a  lark,  a  trifle  light  with  the  fair  sex, 
utterly  devoid  of  religious  principle,  and  brave  to  the  verge 
of  rashness,  the  man  who  would  laugh  as  he  shot  down  a  com- 
rade. He  had  no  future  before  him,  no  idea  of  a  calling,  he 
saw  a  very  amusing  little  war  in  the  functions  proposed  to 
him  ;  and  as  the  Emperor  and  the  Grand  Army  were  his  sole 
articles  of  faith,  he  swore  to  serve  the  brave  Montcornet  if  the 
whole  world  were  against  him.  His  was  a  nature  essentially 
combative  ;  life  without  an  enemy  lost  all  its  savor  for  him; 
he  would  have  made  an  excellent  attorney;  he  was  a  born 
detective.  Indeed,  as  has  been  seen,  but  for  the  presence  of 
the  justice's  clerk,  he  would  have  haled  Granny  Tonsard, 
faggot  and  all,  out  of  the  Grand-I-Vert,  and  the  law  in  his 
person  would  have  violated  the  sanctuary  of  the  hearth. 

The  third,  one  Gaillard,  a  veteran  promoted  to  be  sub- 
lieutenant, and  covered  with  scars,  belonged  to  the  laboring 
class  of  soldiers.  Everything  seemed  to  him  to  be  alike  in- 
different after  the  Emperor's  fate ;  but  his  indifference  would 
carry  him  as  far  as  Vatel's  enthusiasm.  He  had  a  natural 
daughter  to  support,  the  place  offered  him  a  means  of  subsist- 
ence, and  he  took  it  as  he  would  have  enlisted  in  a  regiment. 

When  the  general  went  to  the  Aigues  to  dismiss  Courte- 
cuisse  before  his  old  soldiers  came,  he  was  amazed  beyond 
expression  at  the  man's  impudent  audacity.  There  are  ways 
of  obeying  an  order  which  supply  a  most  cuttingly  sarcastic 
commentary  upon  it,  on  the  part  of  the  slave  who  carries  it 
out  to  the  letter.  Every  relation  between  man  and  man  can 
be  reduced  to  an  absurdity,  and  Courtecuisse  had  overstepped 
the  limits  of  absurdity. 


150  THE  PEASANTRY. 

One  hundred  and  twenty-six  summonses  had  been  taken  out 
at  the  tribunal  of  the  peace  at  Soulanges,  which  took  cogni- 
zance of  misdemeanors ;  and  almost  every  one  of  the  delin- 
quents had  an  understanding  with  Courtecuisse.  In  sixty- 
nine  cases  judgment  had  been  given,  and  duly  registered  and 
notices  served  upon  the  defendants.  Whereupon  Brunei,  de- 
lighted at  such  a  fine  windfall,  did  all  that  was  necessary  to 
arrive  at  the  dreary  point  beyond  which  the  arm  of  the  law 
cannot  reach,  whence  execution  warrants  return  bearing  the 
superscription  "  No  effects,"  a  formula  by  which  the  sheriff 's- 
ofricer  acquaints  you  with  the  fact  that  the  person  herein 
described,  being  in  the  direst  poverty,  is  already  stripped 
bare  of  all  possessions,  and  where  there  is  nothing  to  be  had, 
the  creditor,  like  the  crown,  loses  his  rights — of  suing.  In 
the  present  instance  the  poverty-stricken  individuals  had  been 
selected  with  discernment.  They  lived  scattered  over  five 
communes  round  about ;  and  when  the  sheriff  's-officer  and 
his  two  assistants,  Vermichel  and  Fourchon,  had  duly  gone 
to  find  each  one,  Brunei  returned  the  warrants  to  Sibilet 
together  with  a  statement  of  costs  amounting  to  five  thousand 
francs,  and  an  intimation  that  he  awaited  the  Comte  de  Mont- 
cornet's  further  instructions. 

Provided  with  this  file  of  documents,  Sibilet  waited  on  his 
employer,  calmly  pointed  out  that  these  were  the  results  of  a 
too  summary  order  given  to  Courtecuisse,  and  was  looking 
on,  an  unconcerned  spectator  of  one  of  the  most  tremendous 
explosions  of  wrath  ever  seen  in  a  French  cavalry  officer, 
when  Courtecuisse  came  in  at  that  particular  moment  to  pay 
his  respects  and  to  ask  for  some  eleven  hundred  francs,  the 
promised  bonus  on  these  unlucky  convictions.  Then  temper 
fairly  got  the  upper-hand  of  the  general.  He  forgot  his  rank 
in  the  army,  he  forgot  his  count's  coronet  and  became  a  plain 
trooper  again,  and  poured  out  a  torrent  of  insulting  invective 
of  which  he  would  feel  heartily  ashamed  a  little  later. 

"  Oh  !  eleven  hundred  francs?"  cried  he.     "  Eleven  hun- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  151 

dred  thousand  drubbings  !  Eleven  hundred  thousand  kicks  ! 

Ha !  Do  you  suppose  that  I  am  not  up  to  your  games  ? 

Show  me  a  clean  pair  of  heels  or  I  will  break  every  bone  in 
your  skin  !  " 

At  the  sight  of  the  general  grown  purple  in  the  face,  at  the 
sound  of  the  first  words  he  uttered,  Courtecuisse  fled  away 
like  a  swallow. 

"  Monsieur  le  Comte,"  said  Sibilet,  in  the  mildest  accents, 
"you  are  wrong." 

"Wrong! If" 

"  Good  gracious,  Monsieur  le  Comte,  mind  what  you  are 
about ;  that  rogue  will  prosecute  you " 

"  I  do  not  care  a  rap Look  here  !  that  scoundrel  goes 

this  very  moment.  See  that  he  takes  nothing  of  mine  away 
with  him  and  pay  him  his  wages." 

Four  hours  later  every  tongue  in  the  neighborhood  was  wag- 
ging, as  might  be  expected,  over  the  news.  It  was  said  that 
the  general  had  refused  to  pay  Courtecuisse's  wages,  poor 
fellow ;  had  kept  two  thousand  francs  belonging  to  him,  and 
knocked  him  down. 

Queer  stories  began  to  circulate.  According  to  the  latest 
reports,  the  master  up  at  the  Aigues  had  gone  out  of  his  mind. 
Next  day  Brunet,  who  had  drawn  up  the  execution  warrants 
for  the  general,  served  him  with  a  summons  to  appear  before 
the  tribunal.  The  lion  had  many  fly-pricks  in  store  for  him, 
and  this  was  but  the  beginning  of  his  troubles. 

There  are  various  forms  to  be  gone  through  before  a  forester 
can  be  installed ;  for  one  thing,  he  must  take  the  oath  in  a 
court  of  first  instance.  Several  days  elapsed,  therefore,  before 
the  three  new  foresters  were  properly  qualified  officials.  The 
general  had  written  to  Michaud.  He  and  his  newly  married 
wife  must  come  at  once,  though  the  lodge  was  not  yet  ready 
for  them  ;  but  the  future  head-forester  was  too.  busy  to  leave 
Paris,  his  wife's  relations  had  come  for  the  wedding,  and  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  get  away  for  another  fortnight.  All 


152  THE  PEASANTRY. 

through  that  fortnight,  and  while  the  formalities  were  being 
completed,  with  no  good  grace,  at  Ville-aux-Fayes,  the  wood- 
stealing  was  in  full  swing,  there  was  no  one  in  charge  of  the 
forest,  and  the  marauders  made  the  utmost  of  their  opportu- 
nities. 

The  sudden  portent  of  three  new  foresters  made  a  great 
sensation  in  the  valley  from  Conches  to  Ville-aux-Fayes. 
There  was  that  in  the  appearance  of  the  three  stalwart  figures, 
clad  in  a  grand  green  uniform  (the  Emperor's  color)  which 
plainly  said  that  these  were  stout  fellows,  active  and  sturdy- 
legged,  the  sort  of  men  who  might  be  expected  to  spend  their 
nights  in  the  forest. 

There  was  but  one  in  the  whole  canton  to  give  the  veterans 
a  welcome,  and  that  one  was  Groison  the  rural  policeman. 
In  his  delight  at  such  reinforcements  he  let  drop  a  few  threat- 
ening hints,  how  that  before  long  the  thieves  should  find  them- 
selves in  a  tight  place  and  unable  to  do  any  mischief.  So  the 
formal  declaration  of  war  was  not  omitted  in  this  covert  but 
fierce  struggle. 

Then  Sibilet  called  the  count's  attention  to  another  fact,  to 
wit,  that  the  gendarmerie  at  Soulanges  in  general  and  Police- 
sergeant  Soudry  in  particular  were  in  reality  his  uncompromis- 
ing foes,  and  pointed  out  how  useful  a  brigade  might  be,  if 
imbued  with  the  proper  spirit. 

"With  the  rfght  kind  of  corporal  and  gendarmes  devoted 
to  your  interests,  you  could  do  as  you  liked  with  the  neighbor- 
hood," said  he. 

The  count  hurried  to  the  prefecture,  and  at  his  instance  the 
divisionary  commandant  put  Soudry  on  the  retired  list  and 
replaced  him  by  one  Viollet,  a  gendarme  from  the  market 
town.  The  man  bore  an  excellent  character,  and  both  com- 
mandant and  prefect  commended  him  highly.  The  whole 
Soulanges  brigade  was  broken  up  and  distributed  over  the  de- 
partment by  the  colonel  of  gendarmerie  (one  of  Montcornet's 
old  chums),  and  a  new  brigade  was  reconstructed  of  picked 


THE  PEASANTRY.  153 

men,  who  received  secret  instructions  to  see  that  Montcornet's 
property  was  not  attacked  in  future,  together  with  a  particular 
caution  not  allow  the  inhabitants  of  Soulanges  to  gain  them 
over. 

This  last  revolution  was  accomplished  so  quickly  that  it  was 
impossible  to  thwart  it;  it  spread  dismay  through  Ville-aux- 
Fayes  and  Soulanges.  Soudry  regarded  himself  as  absolutely 
destitute,  and  bitter  were  his  complaints,  till  Gaubertin  con- 
trived to  carry  his  appointment  as  mayor,  so  that  the  control 
of  the  gendarmerie  might  still  be  in  his  hands. 

Great  was  the  outcry  against  this  tyranny.  Montcornet  was 
generally  hated.  It  was  not  merely  that  he  had  changed  the 
course  of  half-a-dozen  human  lives,  he  had  wounded  the  vanity 
of  several  fellow-creatures ;  and  the  peasantry,  excited  by 
hints  dropped  by  the  townspeople  at  Soulanges  and  Ville-aux- 
Fayes,  or  uttered  by  Rigou,  Langlume,  or  Guerbet  (the  post- 
master at  Conches),  imagined  that  they  were  about  to  lose 
their  "  rights,"  as  they  called  them. 

The  general  hushed  up  the  dispute  with  his  sometime  forester 
by  paying  all  claims  in  full;  and  as  for  Courtecuisse,  he  gave 
two  thousand  francs  for  a  little  bit  of  land  that  lay  by  a  cover 
side,  within  the  Montcornet  estate.  Old  Rigou,  who  could 
never  be  persuaded  to  part  with  the  Bachelerie  (as  it  was 
called),  took  a  malicious  pleasure  in  selling  it  now  to  Courte- 
cuisse at  a  profit  of  fifty  per  cent.  The  ex-forester,  moreover, 
became  one  of  Rigou's  many  creatures,  for  he  only  paid  down 
half  the  purchase-money,  and  the  unpaid  half  gave  the  old 
money-lender  a  hold  upon  him. 

Then  began  a  life  of  guerilla  warfare  for  Michaud,  his  three 
foresters,  and  Groison.  Unweariedly  they  tramped  through 
the  woods,  lay  out  in  them  of  nights,  and  set  themselves  to 
acquire  that  intimate  knowledge  which  is  the  forest-keeper's 
science,  and  economizes  his  time.  They  watched  the  outlets, 
grew  familiar  with  the  localities  of  the  timber,  trained  their 
ears  to  detect  the  meaning  of  every  crash  of  boughs,  of  every 


154  THE  PEASANTRY. 

different  forest  sound.  Then  they  studied  all  the  faces  of  the 
neighborhood,  the  different  families  of  the  various  villages 
were  all  passed  in  review,  the  habits  and  characters  of  the  dif- 
ferent individuals  were  noted,  together  with  the  ways  in  which 
they  worked  for  a  living.  And  all  this  was  a  harder  task  than 
you  may  imagine.  The  peasants  who  lived  on  the  Aigues, 
seeing  how  carefully  these  new  measures  had  been  concerted, 
opposed  a  dumb  resistance,  a  feint  of  acquiescence  which 
baffled  this  intelligent  police  supervision. 

Michaud  and  Sibilet  took  a  dislike  to  each  other  from  the 
very  first.  The  steward's  discontented  looks,  his  combined 
sleekness  and  gruff  manner  were  hateful  to  the  straightforward 
outspoken  soldier,  the  flower  of  the  Young  Guard.  At  first 
sight  of  his  colleague  he  called  him  "  a  queer  fish,"  in  his  own 
mind.  It  was  not  lost  upon  him  that  Sibilet  always  raised 
objections  whenever  any  measure  was  proposed  which  went  to 
the  root  of  the  mischief,  and  invariably  advocated  courses 
where  success  was  doubtful.  Instead  of  calming  the  general, 
Sibilet  continually  irritated  him,  as  this  brief  sketch  must  have 
shown  already  ;  he  was  always  urging  him  to  take  strong  meas- 
ures, always  trying  to  frighten  him  by  multiplying  trouble,  by 
making  the  most  of  trifles,  by  confronting  him  with  old  diffi- 
culties which  sprang  up  again  unconquered.  Michaud  did  not 
guess  that  Sibilet  had  deliberately  accepted  the  part  of  spy  on 
Montcornet  and  evil  genius ;  that  ever  since  his  installation  he 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  serve  two  masters,  and  finally  to 
choose  the  one  that  best  suited  his  interests — Montcornet  or 
Gaubertin  ;  but  the  soldier  saw  very  plainly  the  steward's 
grasping  and  base  nature,  and  could  in  no  wise  square  this 
with  honesty  of  purpose.  Nor  was  the  deep-seated  aversion 
which  separated  the  pair  altogether  displeasing  to  Montcornet. 
Michaud's  personal  dislike  led  him  to  watch  the  steward  as  he 
would  never  have  condescended  to  do  had  the  general  asked 
him.  And  as  for  Sibilet,  he  fawned  on  the  head-forester  and 
cringed  to  him,  yet  could  not  induce  the  true-hearted  soldier 


THE  PEASANTRY.  155 

to  lay  aside  the  excessive  civility  which  he  set  as  a  barrier  be- 
tween them. 

After  these  explanatory  details  the  position  of  the  general's 
various  enemies  and  the  drift  of  his  conversation  with  his  two 
ministers  ought  to  be  perfectly  intelligible. 


IX. 

OF   MEDIOCRACY. 

"Well,  Michaud,  is  it  anything  new?"  asked  Montcornet, 
after  the  countess  had  left  the  dining-room. 

"  If  you  will  take  my  advice,  general,  we  will  not  talk  of 
business  here ;  walls  have  ears,  and  I  should  like  to  feel  sure 
that  what  we  are  going  to  say  will  fall  into  none  but  our 
own." 

"Very  well,"  said  the  general;  "  then  let  us  go  out  and 
walk  along  the  field-path  toward  Sibilet's  house;  we  may  be 
sure  that  no  one  will  overhear  us  there." 

A  few  minutes  later,  while  the  countess  went  to  the  Avonne 
gate  with  the  Abbe  Brossette  and  Blondet,  the  general  strolled 
through  the  fields  with  Sibilet  and  Michaud,  and  heard  the 
history  of  the  affair  at  the  Grand-I-Vert. 

"  Vatel  was  in  the  wrong,"  was  Sibilet's  comment. 

"They  made  him  see  that  pretty  clearly  by  blinding  him," 
returned  Michaud.  "  But  that  is  nothing.  You  know  our 
plan  of  taking  the  cattle  of  the  convicted  delinquents,  gen- 
eral? Well,  we  shall  never  succeed.  Brunet  and  his  col- 
league Plissoud  likewise  will  never  cooperate  loyally  with  us. 
They  will  always  contrive  to  warn  the  people  beforehand. 
Vermichel,  Brunei's  assistant  bailiff,  went  to  find  old  Four- 
chon  at  the  Grand-I-Vert.  Marie  Tonsard  is  Bonnebault's 
sweetheart,  so  as  soon  as  she  heard  about  it  she  went  to  give 
the  alarm  at  Conches.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  depredations 
are  beginning  again." 


156  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  Some  very  decided  step  is  more  and  more  called  for  every 
day,"  said  Sibilet. 

"  What  did  I  tell  you  ?  "  cried  the  general.  "  Those  judg- 
ments which  condemned  the  offender  to  imprisonment  in  lieu 
of  a  fine  must  be  enforced.  If  they  do  not  pay  me  damages 
and  costs  they  shall  go  to  prison  instead." 

"  They  think  that  the  law  cannot  touch  them,  and  say 
among  themselves  that  no  one  will  dare  to  arrest  them," 
Sibilet  answered.  "They  fancy  that  they  can  frighten  you  ! 
Some  one  backs  them  at  Ville-aux-Fayes,  for  the  public  pros- 
ecutor seems  to  have  forgotten  the  matter  of  the  condemna- 
tions." 

"I  believe,"  said  Michaud,  seeing  that  the  general  looked 
thoughtful,  "that  by  going  to  a  good  deal  of  expense  you 
may  still  save  your  property." 

"  Better  spend  money  than  proceed  to  extreme  measures," 
said  Sibilet. 

"Then  what  is  your  plan?"  Montcornet  asked,  turning  to 
his  head-forester. 

"  It  is  quite  simple,"  said  Michaud ;  "  it  is  a  question  of 
inclosing  your  park.  We  should  be  left  in  peace  then,  for 
any  trifling  damage  done  to  the  woods  would  be  a  criminal 
offense,  and  as  such  would  be  sent  to  the  court  of  assize  for 
trial." 

Sibilet  laughed.  "At  nine  francs  per  rod  the  building 
materials  alone  would  cost  one-third  of  the  actual  value  of 
the  property,"  he  said. 

"There,  there!"  Montcornet  broke  in.  "I  shall  go  at 
once  and  see  the  attorney-general." 

"  The  attorney-general  may  be  of  the  same  opinion  as  the 
public  prosecutor,"  Sibilet  remarked  suavely;  "such  negli- 
gence looks  as  if  there  was  an  understanding  between  the 
two." 

"Very  good,  that  remains  to  be  found  out !  "  cried  Mont- 
cornet. "  If  everybody  has  to  be  sent  packing,  judges, 


THE  PEASANTRY.  157 

public  prosecutor,  and  the  rest  of  them,  attorney-general  and 
all ;  I  shall  go  if  need  be  to  the  keeper  of  the  seals  about  it, 
or  to  the  King  himself!  " 

A  piece  of  energetic  pantomime  on  Michaud's  part  made 
the  general  turn  round  upon  Sibilet  with  a  "Good  day,  my 
dear  sir."  The  steward  took  the  hint. 

"Is  it  Monsieur  le  Comte's  intention  as  mayor,"  he  said  as 
he  took  leave,  "  to  take  the  necessary  steps  toward  putting  a 
stop  to  the  abuse  of  gleaning?  The  harvest  is  about  to  begin, 
and  if  public  notice  is  to  be  given  that  no  one  will  be  allowed 
to  glean  unless  they  belong  to  the  commune,  and  are  duly 
provided  with  a  certificate,  we  have  no  time  to  lose." 

"You  and  Groison  settle  it  between  you!  "  answered  the 
general.  "  In  dealing  with  such  people  as  these,  the  law  must 
be  carried  out  to  the  letter." 

And  so  in  a  moment  of  vexation  the  system  which  Sibilet 
had  vainly  urged  for  a  fortnight  gained  the  day,  and  found 
favor  in  Montcornet's  eyes  during  the  heat  of  anger  caused 
by  Vatel's  mishap. 

When  Sibilet  was  a  hundred  paces  away,  the  count  spoke 
in  a  low  voice  to  his  head-forester. 

"Well,  Michaud,  my  good  fellow,  what  is  the  matter?" 
asked  the  count. 

"  You  have  an  enemy  in  your  own  household,  general,  and 
you  trust  him  with  plans  that  you  ought  not  to  tell  to  your 
own  foraging  cap." 

"I  share  your  suspicions,  my  good  friend,"  Montcornet 
answered,  "  but  I  will  not  make  the  same  mistake  twice.  I 
am  waiting  till  you  understand  the  management  to  put  you  in 
Sibilet's  place,  and  Vatel  can  take  yours.  And  yet,  what 
fault  have  I  to  find  with  Sibilet  ?  He  is  accurate  and  honest; 
so  far  he  has  not  appropriated  a  hundred  francs,  and  he  has 
been  here  for  five  years.  His  nature  is  as  odious  as  it  can 
possibly  be,  and  all  is  said.  Beside,  what  object  has  he  to 
gain  ?  " 


158  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"He  most  certainly  has  one,  general,"  Michaud  said 
gravely,  "  and  if  you  give  me  leave  I  will  find  it  out.  A 
purse  with  a  thousand  francs  in  it  will  loosen  that  old  rogue 
Fourchon's  tongue,  though  after  this  morning's  performance 
I  suspect  that  old  Fourchon  trims  his  sails  to  suit  every  wind. 
They  mean  to  force  you  to  sell  the  Aigues,  so  that  old  scoun- 
drel of  a  rope-maker  told  me.  You  may  be  sure  of  this :  there 
is  not  a  peasant,  a  small  tradesman,  farmer  or  publican,  be- 
tween Conches  and  Ville-aux-Fayes  but  has  his  money  ready 
against  the  day  of  spoil.  Fourchon  let  me  know  that  his  son- 
in-law,  Tonsard,  has  fixed  his  choice  already.  The  notion 
that  you  will  sell  the  Aigues  prevails  in  the  valley ;  it  is  like 
a  pestilence  in  the  air.  Very  probably  the  steward's  lodge 
and  a  few  acres  of  land  round  about  it  will  be  the  price  of 
Sibilet's  services  as  spy.  Not  a  thing  do  we  say  among  our- 
selves here,  but  it  is  known  in  Ville-aux-Fayes.  Sibilet  is 
related  to  your  enemy  Gaubertin.  The  remark  that  you  let 
fall  just  now  about  the  attorney-general  will,  as  likely  as  not, 
reach  him  before  you  can  be  at  the  prefecture.  You  do  not 
know  the  people  hereabouts  !  " 

"Know  them? — I  know  that  they  are  the  scum  of  the 
earth.  To  think  of  giving  way  before  such  blackguards ! 
Oh  !  I  would  a  hundred  times  sooner  set  fire  to  the  Aigues 
myself,"  cried  the  general. 

"  Let  us  not  set  fire  to  it ;  let  us  plan  out  a  line  of  conduct 
which  will  baffle  their  Lilliputian  stratagems.  To  hear  them 
talk,  they  have  made  up  their  minds  to  go  all  lengths  against 
you  ;  and  by-the-by,  general,  speaking  of  fire,  you  ought  to 
insure  all  your  houses  and  farm  buildings." 

"Oh!  Michaud,  do  you  know  what  they  mean  by  'the 
Upholsterer  ?  '  Yesterday  as  I  came  along  by  the  Thune  the 
little  chaps  called  out  « there  is  the  Upholsterer ! '  and  ran 
away." 

"  Sibilet  would  be  the  one  to  tell  you  that,"  said  Michaud 
down-heartedly  ;  "  he  likes  to  see  you  in  a  passion.  But  since 


THE  PEASANTRY,  159 

you  ask  me — well,  it  is  a  nickname  these  blackguards  have 
given  you,  general." 

"Why?" 

"Why,  on  your — your  father's  account,  general." 

"Ah  !  the  curs  !  "  shouted  the  general,  turning  white  with 
rage.  "  Yes,  Michaud,  my  father  was  a  furniture  dealer,  a 
cabinet-maker.  The  countess  knows  nothing  about  it.  Oh  ! 

that  ever  ! Eh  !  though,  after  all,  I  have  set  queens  and 

empresses  dancing.  I  will  tell  her  everything  this  evening," 
he  exclaimed  after  a  pause. 

"They  say  that  you  are  a  coward,"  Michaud  went  on. 

"Ha!" 

"  They  want  to  know  how  it  was  that  you  got  off  safely  at 
Essling  when  you  left  nearly  all  your  regiment  there " 

This  accusation  drew  a  smile  from  the  general. 

"  Michaud,  I  am  going  to  the  prefecture,"  he  said,  still 
under  some  kind  of  strong  excitement,  "if  it  is  only  to  take 
out  insurance  policies.  Tell  the  countess  that  I  have  gone. 
They  want  war,  do  they?  They  shall  have  it.  I  will  amuse 
myself  by  upsetting  their  schemes  for  them — these  Soulanges 
tradesmen  and  their  peasants.  We  are  in  the  enemy's  country ; 
we  must  mind  what  we  are  about.  Impress  it  upon  the  for- 
esters that  they  must  keep  well  within  the  law.  Poor  Vatel, 
look  after  him.  The  countess  has  been  frightened  ;  she  must 
know  nothing  of  all  this ;  if  she  did  she  would  never  come 
here  again  !  " 

Yet  neither  the  general  nor  Michaud  himself  knew  the  real 
nature  of  their  peril.  Michaud  had  too  lately  come  to  this 
Burgundian  valley;  he  had  no  idea  of  the  enemy's  strength, 
although  he  saw  the  influences  at  work ;  and,  as  for  the  general, 
he  put  too  much  faith  in  the  power  of  legislation. 

The  laws,  as  fabricated  by  the  modern  legislator,  have  not 
all  the  virtue  with  which  they  are  credited.  They  are  not 
even  carried  out  equally  all  over  the  country  ;  they  are  modi- 
fied in  application  until  the  practice  flatly  contradicts  the 


160  THE  PEASANTRY. 

spirit  in  which  they  were  framed ;  and  this  is  a  patent  fact  in 
every  epoch.  What  historian  would  be  so  benighted  as  to  lay 
down  the  statement  that  the  decrees  of  the  strongest  govern- 
ments have  been  equally  enforced  all  over  France  at  once?  or 
that  in  the  time  of  the  Convention,  the  requisitions  of  men, 
stores,  and  money,  pressed  as  heavily  upon  Provence,  or  Lower 
Normandy,  or  the  borders  of  Brittany,  as  upon  the  population 
of  the  great  centres  of  civil  life  ?  Where  is  the  philosopher 
who  will  deny  that  two  men  in  two  neighboring  departments 
may  commit  the  same  crime,  and  one  will  lose  his  head,  and 
the  other,  and  perhaps  the  worse  villain  of  the  two,  keeps  his 
upon  his  shoulders  ?  We  must  have  equality  in  life,  forsooth, 
and  we  have  inequality  in  the  administration  of  the  law,  and 
in  the  penalty  of  death. 

As  soon  as  the  population  of  a  city  reaches  a  certain  limit, 
the  administrative  methods  are  no  longer  the  same.  There 
are  about  a  hundred  cities  in  France  in  which  the  intelligence 
of  the  citizens  is  capable  of  looking  beyond  the  expediency 
of  the  present  moment,  and  discerning  the  wider  problems 
which  the  law  attempts  to  solve ;  there  the  law  is  intelligently 
enforced,  but  in  the  rest  of  France,  where  people  understand 
nothing  but  their  own  immediate  interests,  anything  which 
may  interfere  with  these  is  a  dead  letter.  Over  one-half  of 
France,  roughly  speaking,  the  vis  inertia  neutralizes  the  action 
of  legislation  of  every  description.  Let  it  be  clearly  under- 
stood, however,  that  this  passive  resistance  does  not  extend  to 
certain  essentials  of  political  existence,  such  as  the  payment 
of  imperial  taxes,  the  conscription,  the  punishment  of  heinous 
crime;  but  every  attempt  in  legislation  to  deal  with  other 
than  broadly  recognized  necessities,  to  touch  ways  of  life, 
private  interests  or  certain  forms  of  abuse,  is  frustrated  by  a 
common  consent  of  reluctance.  Even  now,  while  this  work 
is  passing  through  the  press,  it  is  easy  to  discern  the  signs  of 
this  resistance,  the  same  with  which  Louis  XIV.  came  into 
collision  in  Brittany.  Seeing  the  deplorable  state  of  things 


THE  PEASANTRY.  161 

caused  by  the  game  laws,  there  are  those  who  will  make  an 
annual  sacrifice  of  some  twenty  or  thirty  human  lives  to  pre- 
serve a  few  animals. 

For  a  French  population  of  twenty  millions  the  law  is  noth- 
ing but  a  sheet  of  white  paper  nailed  to  the  church-door  or 
pinned  up  in  the  mayor's  office.  Hence  Mouche's  words 
"the  papers,"  an  expression  for  authority.  Many  a  mayor 
of  a  canton  (putting  simple  mayors  of  communes  out  of  the 
question)  makes  paper  bags  for  seeds  or  raisins  out  of  sheets 
of  the  Bulletin  des  Lois.*  And  as  to  the  mayors  of  com- 
munes, one  would  be  afraid  to  say  how  many  there  are  of 
them  that  can  neither  read  nor  write,  or  to  ask  how  the 
registers  are  kept  up  in  their  districts.  Every  serious  admin- 
istration is  no  doubt  perfectly  aware  of  the  gravity  of  the 
situation  ;  doubtless,  too,  it  will  diminish ;  but  there  is  some- 
thing else  which  Centralization — so  much  declaimed  against 
in  France,  where  we  declaim  against  any  great  thing  which 
has  any  use  or  strength  in  it — which  Centralization  will  never 
reach,  and  this  power  against  which  it  is  shattered  is  the  same 
power  with  which  General  Montcornet  was  about  to  come 
into  collision — for  want  of  a  better  name  it  may  be  called 
Mediocracy. 

Great  was  the  outcry  against  the  tyranny  of  the  nobles ; 
and  to-day  we  shriek  against  the  capitalist  and  abuses  of 
power  which,  perhaps,  after  all,  are  only  the  inevitable  chaf- 
ings  of  that  social  yoke,  styled  the  Contract  by  Rousseau ;  we 
hear  of  constitutions  here  and  charters  there,  of  king  and 
czar  and  the  English  parliament ;  but  the  leveling  process 
which  began  in  1789  and  made  a  fresh  start  in  1830  has  in 
reality  paved  the  way  for  the  muddle-headed  domination  of 
the  bourgeoisie  and  delivered  France  over  to  them.  The 
presentment  of  a  fact  seen  unhappily  but  too  often  in  these 
days,  to  wit,  the  enslavement  of  a  canton,  a  little  town,  or  a 
sub-prefecture  by  a  single  family,  the  history  of  the  manner 

*  The  official  publication  of  the  laws. 
11 


162  THE  PEASANTRY. 

in  which  a  Gaubertin  contrived  to  gain  this  local  ascendency 
when  the  Restoration  was  in  full  swing,  will  give  a  better  idea 
of  the  crying  evil  than  any  quantity  of  flat  assertions.  Many 
an  oppressed  district  will  recognize  the  truth  of  the  picture, 
and  many  an  obscure  down-trodden  victim  will  find  in  this 
brief  "Here  lieth  "  a  publicity  given  to  his  private  griefs 
which  sometimes  soothes  them. 

When  the  general  concluded  a  purely  imaginary  truce  for 
renewed  hostilities,  his  ex-steward  had  pretty  much  completed 
the  network  of  threads  in  which  he  held  Ville-aux-Fayes  and 
the  whole  district  round  it.  It  will  be  better  to  give,  in  as 
few  words  as  possible,  an  account  of  the  various  ramifications 
of  the  Gaubertin  family,  for  by  means  of  his  kin  he  had  in- 
volved the  whole  country  in  his  toils,  something  as  the  boa- 
constrictor  winds  itself  about  a  tree-trunk  so  cunningly  that 
the  passing  traveler  mistakes  the  serpent  for  some  Asiatic 
vegetable  product. 

In  the  year  1793  there  were  three  brothers  of  the  name  of 
Mouchon  in  the  Avonne  valley.  (It  was  about  that  time  that 
the  name  of  the  valley  was  changed  ;  hitherto  it  had  been  the 
valley  of  the  Aigues ;  now  the  hated  name  of  the  old  manor 
fell  out  of  use  and  it  became  the  Avonne  valley). 

The  oldest  of  the  brothers,  a  steward  of  the  manor  of  Ron- 
querolles,  became  a  deputy  of  the  department  under  the  Con- 
vention. He  took  a  hint  from  his  friend  Gaubertin  senior 
(the  public  accuser  who  saved  the  Soulanges  family),  and  in 
like  manner  saved  the  lives  and  property  of  the  Ronquerolles. 
This  brother  had  two  daughters ;  one  of  them  married  Gen- 
drin  the  barrister,  the  other  became  the  wife  of  Francis  Gau- 
bertin. Finally,  he  died  in  1804. 

The  second  brother  obtained  the  post-house  at  Conches 
gratis,  thanks  to  the  elder's  influence.  His  daughter,  his  sole 
offspring  and  heiress,  married  a  well-to-do  farmer  in  the 
neighborhood,  Guerbet  by  name.  He  died  in  1817. 

But  the  youngest  of  the  Mouchons  took  holy  orders.     He 


THE  PEASANTRY.  163 

was  cure"  of  Ville-aux-Fayes  before  the  Revolution,  cure  again 
after  the  restoration  of  the  Catholic  religion,  and  now  the 
year  1823  still  found  him  cure  of  the  little  metropolis.  He 
had  formerly  declined  the  oath,  and  in  consequence  for  a  long 
time  had  kept  out  of  sight  and  lived  in  the  "  hermitage  "  at  the 
Aigues,  protected  by  the  Gaubertins,  father  and  son  ;  and  now, 
at  the  age  of  sixty-seven,  he  enjoyed  the  affection  and  esteem  of 
his  whole  parish,  for  all  his  characteristics  were  common  to  his 
flock.  He  was  parsimonious  to  the  verge  of  avarice,  was  re- 
ported to  be  very  rich,  and  these  rumors  of  wealth  strengthened 
the  respect  which  he  met  with  on  all  sides.  His  lordship  the 
bishop  thought  very  highly  of  the  Abbe  Mouchon,  usually 
spoken  of  as  "  the  venerable  cure  of  Ville-aux-Fayes ;  "  it  was 
well  known  there  that  the  bishop  had  pressed  him  more  than 
once  to  accept  a  superb  living  at  the  prefecture,  and  his  re- 
peated refusals,  no  less  than  his  reputation  for  riches,  had 
endeared  the  Cure  Mouchon  to  his  fellow-inhabitants. 

At  this  time  Gaubertin,  mayor  of  Ville-aux-Fayes,  found  a 
solid  supporter  in  his  brother-in-law,  M.  Gendrin,  president 
of  the  Court  of  First  Instance,  while  his  own  son — now  the 
busiest  attorney  in  the  place,  and  a  by-word  in  the  arrondisse- 
ment — talked  already  of  selling  his  practice  after  five  years. 
He  meant  to  be  a  barrister,  and  to  succeed  his  Uncle  Gendrin 
when  the  latter  retired.  President  Gendrin's  only  son  was 
registrar  of  mortgages. 

Soudry  junior,  who  had  fulfilled  the  functions  of  public 
prosecutor  for  two  years,  was  one  of  Gaubertin's  zealous  ad- 
herents. Clever  Mme.  Soudry  had  done  her  part.  She  had 
strengthened  her  husband's  son's  present  position  by  immense 
expectations  when  she  married  him  to  Rigou's  only  daughter. 
One  day  the  public  prosecutor  would  inherit  a  double  fortune, 
the  ex-monk's  money  would  come  to  him  as  well  as  Soudry's 
savings,  and  the  young  fellow  would  be  one  of  the  wealthiest 
and  most  important  men  in  the  department. 

The  sub-prefect  of  Ville-aux-Fayes  was  a  M.  des  Lupeaulx,  a 


164  THE  PEASANTRY. 

nephew  of  the  secretary  of  a  State  department.  He  was  meant 
to  marry  Mile.  Elise  Gaubertin,  the  mayor's  youngest  daugh- 
ter. Like  her  eldest  sister,  she  had  a  portion  of  two  hundred 
thousand  francs,  beside  expectations.  Young  des  Lupeaulx 
had  unwittingly  done  a  clever  thing  on  first  coming  to  the 
place  in  1819  when  he  fell  straightway  in  love  with  Elise;  but 
for  his  eligibility  as  a  suitor,  he  would  long  since  have  been 
compelled  to  ask  for  an  exchange,  but  as  it  was,  he  belonged 
prospectively  to  the  Gaubertin  clan,  whose  chieftain's  eyes 
were  fixed  less  upon  the  nephew  than  upon  the  uncle  in  Paris. 
For  all  the  uncle's  influence,  in  his  nephew's  interest,  was  at 
Gaubertin's  disposition. 

And  so  the  church,  the  magistracy,  permanent  and  remov- 
able, the  municipality  and  the  administration,  the  four  feet  of 
power,  walked  at  the  mayor's  will. 

This  power  was  strengthened  in  regions  above  and  below  its 
immediate  sphere  of  action  by  the  following  means : 

The  department  in  which  Ville-aux-Fayes  is  situated  is 
sufficiently  populous  to  nominate  six  deputies.  Ever  since 
the  creation  of  the  Left-Centre  in  the  Chamber,  Ville-aux- 
Fayes  had  been  represented  by  Leclercq,  who,  it  may  be  re- 
membered, was  Gaubertin's  son-in-law  and  the  agent  in  charge 
of  the  city  wine-cellars,  and  since  had  become  a  governor  of 
the  Bank  of  France.  The  number  of  electors  which  this  well- 
to-do  valley  furnished  to  the  grand  electoral  college  was  suffi- 
ciently considerable  to  insure  the  election  of  M.  de  Ronque- 
rolles  (the  patron  acquired,  as  explained,  by  the  Mouchon 
family),  even  if  an  arrangement  had  to  be  made.  The  electors 
of  Ville-aux-Fayes  gave  their  support  to  the  prefect  on  condition 
that  the  Marquis  de  Ronquerolles  should  continue  to  be  elected 
by  the  grand  college.  So  Gaubertin,  the  first  to  hit  upon  this 
electioneering  expedient,  was  in  good  odor  at  the  prefecture, 
which  he  saved  many  disappointments.  The  prefect  managed 
to  return  three  out-and-out  Ministerialists  as  well  as  two  depu- 
ties for  the  Left-Centre,  and  as  one  of  these  two  last  was  a 


THE  PEASANTRY.  165 

governor  of  the  Bank  of  France,  and  the  other  the  Marquis  de 
Ronquerolles,  the  Comte  du  Serizy's  brother-in-law,  there  was 
little  to  alarm  the  cabinet.  So  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior 
looked  upon  the  elections  in  this  particular  department  as  very 
well  regulated. 

The  Comte  de  Soulanges,  a  peer  of  France,  a  marshal-desig- 
nate, and  a  faithful  adherent  of  the  House  of  Bourbon,  knew 
that  his  estates  and  woods  were  well  managed  and  properly 
guarded  by  Soudry  and  Lupin  the  notary.  He  might  be  con- 
sidered to  be  Gendrin's  patron,  for  he  had  successfully  pro- 
cured for  him  the  posts  of  judge  and  president,  with  the  co- 
operation of  M.  de  Ronquerolles. 

Messrs.  Leclercq  and  de  Ronquerolles  took  their  seats  in  the 
Centre-Left,  and  toward  the  Left  rather  than  to  the  Centre 
side,  a  position  in  politics  which  presents  numerous  advantages 
to  those  who  can  change  their  political  conscience  like  a  suit 
of  clothes. 

M.  Leclercq's  brother  had  obtained  the  post  of  tax-collector 
at  Ville-aux-Fayes,  and  Leclercq  himself,  the  banker-deputy 
of  the  arrondissement,  had  recently  purchased  a  fine  estate, 
bringing  in  thirty  thousand  francs  a  year,  together  with  a  park 
and  a  castle,  the  whole  lying  just  outside  the  town — a  position 
which  enabled  him  to  influence  the  whole  canton. 

In  these  ways  Gaubertin  had  power  in  the  higher  regions 
of  the  State,  in  the  two  Chambers,  and  in  the  Cabinet ;  he 
could  count  upon  influence  both  potent  and  active,  and  as  yet 
he  had  not  weakened  it  by  asking  for  trifles,  nor  strained  it 
by  too  many  serious  demands. 

Councilor  Gendrin,  appointed  vice-president  by  the 
Chamber,  was  the  real  power  in  the  Court-Royal.  The  first 
president,  one  of  the  three  Ministerialist  deputies  returned  by 
the  department,  and  an  indispensable  orator  of  the  Centre, 
was  away  for  half  the  year  and  left  his  court  to  Vice-presi- 
dent Gendrin. 

The  prefect  himself  was  another  deputy,  and  the  prefect's 


166  THE   PEASANTRY. 

right  hand  was  a  member  of  his  council,  a  cousin  of  Sarcus 
the  justice,  called  Money-Sarcus  by  way  of  distinction.  But 
for  the  family  considerations  which  bound  Gaubertin  and 
young  des  Lupeaulx,  Mme.  Sarcus'  brother  would  have  been 
"  put  forward  "  as  sub-prefect  of  the  arrondissement  of  Ville- 
aux-Fayes.  Mme.  Sarcus  (wife  of  Money-Sarcus)  was  a  Vallat 
of  Soulanges,  and  related  to  the  Gaubertins.  It  was  said  of 
her  that  she  had  shown  a  preference  for  the  Notary  Lupin 
when  he  was  a  young  man;  and  now,  though  she  was  a 
woman  of  five-and-forty,  with  a  grown-up  son,  an  assistant- 
surveyor,  Lupin  never  went  to  the  prefecture  but  he  paid  his 
respects  to  Mme.  Money-Sarcus  or  dined  with  her. 

The  nephew  of  Guerbet,  the  postmaster,  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  son  of  the  Soulanges  tax-collector,  and  filled  the 
important  post  of  examining  magistrate  at  the  tribunal  of 
Ville-aux-Fayes.  The  third  magistrate  was  a  Corbinet,  son 
of  the  notary  of  that  name,  and,  of  course,  belonged  body 
and  soul  to  the  all-powerful  mayor  of  Ville-aux-Fayes,  and 
(to  close  the  list  of  legal  functionaries)  the  deputy-magistrate 
was  Vigor  junior,  son  of  the  lieutenant  of  gendarmerie. 

Now  Sibilet's  father,  who  had  been  clerk  of  the  court  ever 
since  there  had  been  a  court  at  all,  had  married  his  sister  to 
M.  Vigor,  the  aforesaid  lieutenant  of  gendarmerie  at  Ville- 
aux-Fayes.  Sibilet  himself,  good  man,  was  a  father  of  six, 
and  a  cousin  of  Gaubertin's  father  through  his  wife,  a  Gau- 
bertin-Vallat. 

Only  eighteen  months  ago  the  united  efforts  of  both  depu- 
ties, of  M.  de  Soulanges  and  President  Gendrin,  had  success- 
fully created  a  post  of  commissary  of  police  and  filled  it.  The 
elder  Sibilet's  second  son  had  the  appointment.  Sibilet's 
eldest  daughter  had  married  M.  Herve,  a  schoolmaster;  within 
a  year  of  the  marriage  his  establishment  was  transformed,  and 
Ville-aux-Fayes  received  the  boon  of  a  head-master  of  a  gram- 
mar school. 

Another  Sibilet,  Maitre   Corbinet's  clerk,  looked  to  the 


THE   PEASANTRY.  167 

Gaubertins,  Leclercqs,  and  Soudrys  to  be  his  sureties  when 
the  time  should  come  for  buying  his  employer's  practice;  and 
the  youngest  found  employment  in  the  Internal  Revenue  De- 
partment for  the  time  being,  with  a  prospect  of  succeeding  to 
the  position  of  registrar  when  the  present  occupant  should 
reach  the  limit  of  service  prescribed  for  obtaining  a  pension. 

Sibilet's  youngest  daughter,  a  girl  of  sixteen,  was  engaged 
to  be  married  to  Captain  Corbinet,  Maitre  Corbinet's  brother, 
master  of  the  post-office,  and  this  completes  the  history  of  the 
Sibilet  family. 

The  postmaster  at  Ville-aux-Fayes  was  Vigor  senior,  brother- 
in-law  of  Leclercq  of  the  city  cellars.  He  commanded  the 
National  Guard.  Mme.  Sibilet's  sister,  an  elderly  spinster 
and  a  Gaubertin-Vallat,  held  the  office  of  stamp  distributer. 

Look  where  you  liked  in  Ville-aux-Fayes,  you  found  some 
member  of  the  invisible  coalition,  headed  avowedly  (for  the 
fact  was  openly  recognized  by  great  and  small)  by  the  mayor, 
the  general  agent  of  the  timber  trade — Monsieur  Gaubertin  ! 

If  you  left  the  seat  of  the  sub-prefecture  and  went  further 
down  the  Avonne  valley,  you  found  Gaubertin  again  ruling 
Soulanges  through  the  Soudrys,  and  Lupin  the  deputy-mayor, 
the  steward  of  the  manor  of  Soulanges,  in  constant  communi- 
cation with  the  count ;  through  Sarcus,  justice  of  the  peace, 
and  his  son's  wife's  father;  through  Guerbet  the  tax-collector 
and  Gourdon  the  doctor,  who  had  married  a  Gendrin-Vatte- 
bled.  Gaubertin  governed  Blangy  through  Rigou,  and  Con- 
ches through  the  postmaster,  whose  word  was  law  in  his  own 
commune.  And  by  the  way  in  which  the  ambitious  mayor 
of  Ville-aux-Fayes  spread  his  influence  far  and  wide  in  the 
Avonne  valley,  it  may  be  imagined  how  far  he  made  himself 
felt  in  the  rest  of  the  arrondissement. 

The  head  of  the  firm  of  Leclercq  was  put  forward  as  prin- 
cipal deputy.  It  had  been  agreed  upon  from  the  very  first 
that  he  would  relinquish  his  place  to  Gaubertin  so  soon  as  he 
himself  should  obtain  the  post  of  receiver-general  of  the  de. 


168  THE  PEASANTRY. 

partment.  Young  Soudry,  the  public  prosecutor,  was  to  be- 
come attorney-general  to  the  Court-Royal ;  while  the  rich 
Examining-magistrate  Guerbet  was  to  be  one  of  the  councilors. 
This  general  promotion,  far  from  being  oppressive,  was  to 
insure  the  advancement  of  others,  such,  for  instance,  as  Vigor 
the  deputy-magistrate,  or  Francois  Vallat,  Money-Sarcus' 
wife's  cousin,  at  present  only  prosecutor-substitute.  In  fact, 
all  the  ambitious  young  men  in  the  valley,  and  every  family 
which  had  anything  to  gain,  were  so  many  supporters  of  the 
coalition. 

Gaubertin's  influence  was  so  serious  and  so  powerful  in  the 
district  that  its  secret  springs  of  wealth,  the  savings  hoarded 
up  by  the  Rigous,  Soudrys,  Gendrins,  Guerbets,  and  Lupins, 
nay,  by  Money-Sarcus  himself,  were  all  controlled  by  him. 
Ville-aux-Fayes,  moreover,  believed  in  its  mayor.  Gauber- 
tin's ability  was  not  more  cried  up  than  his  honesty  and  his 
readiness  to  oblige.  He  was  at  the  service  of  all  his  relations ; 
there  was  not  one  of  his  constituents  but  could  claim  his  help; 
but  it  was  a  game  of  give  and  take.  His  town  council  looked 
up  to  him.  Wherefore  the  whole  department  blamed  M. 
Mariotte  of  Auxerre  for  crossing  good  M.  Gaubertin's  path. 

The  Ville-aux-Fayes  townspeople  took  their  abilities  for 
granted,  since  nothing  had  ever  occurred  to  put  them  to  the 
test ;  they  prided  themselves  simply  and  solely  on  having  no 
outsiders  among  them,  and  thought  themselves  excellent 
patriots.  Thus  nothing  escaped  this  tyranny,  so  carefully 
thought  out  that  it  was  scarcely  recognized  as  tyranny,  for  the 
spectacle  of  natives  filling  every  high  place  struck  the  ordi- 
nary mind  as  a  triumph  of  native  intellect.  For  instance, 
when  the  Liberal  Opposition  declared  war  against  the  Bour- 
bons of  the  elder  branch,  Gaubertin  saw  an  opening  for  a  nat- 
ural son  of  his,  for  whom  he  was  at  a  loss  to  provide.  His 
wife  did  not  know  of  the  existence  of  this  Bournier,  as  he  was 
called,  who  for  a  long  time  had  been  kept  in  Paris.  Leclercq 
had  looked  after  him  till  he  became  a  foreman  in  a  printing 


THE  PEASANTRY.  169 

office,  but  now  Gaubertin  set  him  up  as  a  printer  in  the  town 
of  Ville-aux-Fayes.  Acting  on  the  prompting  of  his  protec- 
tor, the  young  fellow  brought  out  a  newspaper  three  times  a 
week,  and  the  "  Courrier  de  1'Avonne"  began  by  taking 
away  the  official  announcements  from  the  paper  of  the  prefec- 
ture. This  local  sheet,  while  supporting  the  Ministry,  in- 
clined to  the  Centre-Left,  and  obtained  a  large  circulation  by 
publishing  a  summary  of  the  market  reports  of  Burgundy ;  but 
in  reality  it  was  worked  in  the  interests  of  the  Rigou-Gau- 
bertin-Soudry  triumvirate.  Young  Bournier,  the  head  of  a 
fairly  large  establishment  which  already  began  to  pay  very 
well,  paid  court  to  one  of  Attorney  Marechal's  daughters,  and 
appeared  to  be  well  received. 

There  was  one  outsider  in  the  great  Avonnaise  family  in  the 
person  of  the  district  surveyor ;  but  the  greatest  efforts  were 
being  made  to  exchange  the  stranger  for  a  native  Sarcus, 
Money-Sarcus'  son,  and  in  all  likelihood  this  broken  thread 
in  the  mesh  would  very  shortly  be  repaired. 

The  formidable  league  which  filled  every  public  and  pri- 
vate position  with  its  own  members,  draining  the  wealth  of 
the  neighborhood,  and  clinging  to  power  as  the  remorae  cling 
to  the  ship's  keel,  was  not  visible  at  first  sight.  General 
Montcornet  had  no  suspicion  of  it,  and  the  prefecture  con- 
gratulated itself  upon  the  flourishing  condition  of  Ville-aux- 
Fayes.  At  the  Home  Office  it  was  said  :  "  There  is  a  model 
sub-prefecture  for  you,  everything  there  goes  on  wheels !  If 
all  arrondissements  were  like  that  one,  how  happy  we  should 
be!"  And  family  cliques  came  so  effectually  to  the  aid  ot 
local  feeling,  that  here  as  in  many  another  little  town,  nay, 
prefecture,  any  outsider  appointed  to  an  official  position 
would  have  been  forced  to  leave  the  district  within  the  year. 

The  victim  of  all-powerful  bourgeois  clannishness  is  so 
thoroughly  entangled  and  gagged  that  he  does  not  dare  to 
complain ;  like  the  intruding  snail  in  a  beehive,  he  is  sealed 
up,  be- waxed  and  be-glued.  There  are  great  inducements  to 


170  THE  PEASANTRY. 

this  course  of  invisible,  intangible  tyranny;  there  is  the 
strong  desire  to  be  among  one's  own  people,  to  see  after  one's 
own  bits  of  property ;  there  is  the  mutual  help  which  relatives 
can  afford,  and  the  guarantees  given  to  the  administration  by 
the  fact  that  its  agent  is  working  under  the  eyes  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  and  amenable  to  local  public  opinion.  Moreover, 
nepotism  is  not  confined  to  little  country  towns ;  it  is  quite 
as  common  in  higher  branches  of  the  civil  service.  But  what 
is  the  actual  outcome?  Local  interests  triumph  over  wider 
and  larger  considerations ;  the  intentions  of  the  central  gov- 
ernment in  Paris  are  completely  defeated,  the  real  facts  of  the 
case  are  twisted  out  of  all  knowledge,  the  province  laughs  in 
the  face  of  the  central  authority.  Great  national  necessities 
once  supplied,  in  fact,  the  remaining  laws,  generally  speaking, 
instead  of  modifying  the  character  of  the  people  are  modified 
by  them,  and  the  masses,  instead  of  adapting  themselves  to 
the  law,  adapt  the  law  to  themselves. 

Any  one  who  has  traveled  in  the  south  or  west  of  France, 
or  in  Alsace  (unless  indeed  he  travels  simply  for  the  sake  of 
seeing  landscapes  and  public  monuments  and  sleeping  in  the 
inns),  must  admit  that  these  observations  are  just.  As  yet  the 
effects  of  bourgeois  nepotism  only  appear  as  isolated  symp- 
toms, but  the  tendencies  of  recent  legislation  will  aggravate 
the  disease,  and  this  domination  of  dullness  may  cause  fear- 
ful evils,  as  will  be  abundantly  evident  in  the  course  of  this 
drama  in  the  Aigues  valley. 

Under  old  systems,  overturned  more  rashly  than  is  generally 
thought,  under  the  Monarchy  and  the  Empire,  this  kind  of 
abuse  was  kept  in  check  by  an  upper  hierarchy ;  a  counter- 
poise was  found  in  class  distinctions  which  were  senselessly 
denominated  "  privilege."  But  as  soon  as  a  general  scramble 
up  the  soaped  pole  of  authority  begins,  "  privilege  "  ceases  to 
exist.  Would  it  not  be  wise,  moreover,  to  recognize  at  once 
that  since  there  must  be  a  "  privileged  class,"  it  had  better 
consist  of  those  who  are  openly  and  avowedly  privileged  ? 


THE   PEASANTRY.  171 

that  those  who  have  taken  their  position  by  stratagem  and 
intrenched  themselves  in  it  by  cunning,  private  self-seeking, 
and  fraudulent  imitations  of  public  spirit,  are  only  doing  the 
work  of  despotism  over  again  on  a  fresh  foundation  and  a 
notch  lower  in  the  social  scale  ?  Shall  we  not  have  over- 
thrown a  race  of  noble  tyrants  who  had  the  interests  of  their 
country  at  heart,  only  to  create  a  race  of  self-seeking  tyrants 
in  their  stead  ?  Shall  authority  issue  from  cellars  instead  of 
spreading  its  influence  from  its  natural  place  ?  These  things 
should  be  borne  in  mind.  The  Parochialism  just  portrayed 
will  gain  ground  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies. 

Montcornet's  friend,  the  Comte  de  la  Roche-Hugon,  had 
been  dismissed  a  short  time  before  the  general's  last  visit. 
This  dismissal  drove  the  statesman  into  the  Liberal  Opposi- 
tion ;  he  became  one  of  the  leading  lights  of  the  Left,  and 
then  promptly  deserted  his  party  for  an  embassy.  To  him 
succeeded,  luckily  for  Montcornet,  a  son-in-law  of  the  Marquis 
de  Troisville,  the  Comte  de  Casteran,  Mme.  de  Montcornet's 
uncle,  who  received  him  as  a  relation,  and  graciously  begged 
him  to  renew  his  acquaintance  with  the  prefecture.  The 
Comte  de  Casteran  listened  to  Montcornet's  complaints,  and 
asked  the  bishop,  the  colonel  of  gendarmerie,  the  attorney- 
general,  Councilor  Sarcus,  and  the  commandant  of  the  divi- 
sion, to  meet  him  at  breakfast  on  the  following  day. 

Baron  Bourlac,  the  attorney-general,  first  brought  into 
prominence  by  the  trials  of  la  Chanterie  and  Rifael,  was  a 
man  of  a  kind  invaluable  to  a  government,  by  reason  of  his 
stanch  support  of  any  party  in  power.  He  owed  his  elevation 
to  a  fanatical  worship  of  the  Emperor,  and  his  continuance  in 
his  judicial  rank  partly  to  an  inflexible  nature,  partly  to  the 
professional  conscience  which  he  brought  to  the  performance 
of  his  duties.  As  a  public  prosecutor  he  had  once  ruthlessly 
hunted  out  the  remnants  of  Chouannerie,  now  he  prosecuted 
Bonapartists  with  equal  zeal.  But  time  and  storms  had  soft- 
ened him  down  and,  as  most  frequently  happens,  the  hero  of 


172  THE  PEASANTRY. 

terrific  legends  had  grown  very  charming  in  his  ways  and 
manner. 

The  Comte  de  Montcornet  set  forth  his  position,  and  men- 
tioned his  head-forester's  fears.  Then  he  began  to  talk  about 
the  necessity  of  making  examples  and  of  maintaining  the 
cause  of  property. 

His  audience  of  high  officials  heard  him  out  with  solemn 
faces,  giving  him  vague  generalities  by  way  of  answer.  "  Oh, 
of  course,  of  course,  force  should  be  on  the  side  of  the  law. 
Your  cause  is  the  cause  of  every  landowner.  We  will  give 
the  matter  our  attention,  but  in  our  position  we  are  obliged 
to  be  very  careful.  A  monarchy  is  bound  to  do  more  for  the 
people  than  the  people  would  do  for  themselves  if  they  were 
sovereign  rulers  as  in  1793.  The  people  have  heavy  burdens ; 
our  duty  to  them  is  as  clear  as  our  duty  to  you." 

Then  the  inexorable  attorney-general  suavely  set  forth  vari- 
ous thoughtful  and  benevolent  views  touching  the  lower  orders, 
which  would  have  convinced  future  constructors  of  Utopias 
that  the  higher  ranks  of  the  officialdom  of  that  day  were  not 
unacquainted  with  the  knotty  points  of  the  problem  to  be 
solved  by  modern  society. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  say  here  that,  at  this  very 
time,  during  the  epoch  of  the  Restoration,  sanguinary  col- 
lisions were  very  common  all  over  the  kingdom,  and  upon 
this  very  point  in  question.  Wood-stealing  and  other  peasants' 
encroachments  were  regarded  as  vested  interests.  The  Court 
and  the  Ministry  strongly  objected  to  all  disturbances  of  this 
kind  and  to  the  bloodshed  consequent  upon  forcible  repres- 
sion, successful  and  unsuccessful.  It  was  felt  that  severity 
was  needed,  but  the  local  authorities  were  made  to  feel  that 
they  had  blundered  if  the  peasants  were  put  down  harshly, 
and  if  on  the  other  hand  they  showed  any  weakness  they  were 
cashiered.  So  prefects  were  apt  to  equivocate  when  these 
deplorable  accidents  happened. 

At  the  very  outset  Money-Sarcus  had  made  a  sign  (unseen 


THE  PEASANTRY.  173 

by  Montcornet)  which  the  prefect  and  public  prosecutor  both 
understood,  a  sign  which  changed  the  tone  of  the  conversa- 
tion that  followed.  The  attorney-general  knew  pretty  much 
how  things  were  in  the  Aigues  valley  through  his  assistant, 
young  Soudry. 

"  I  can  see  that  there  will  be  a  terrible  struggle,"  the  public 
prosecutor  had  told  his  chief  (he  had  come  over  from  Ville- 
aux-Fayes  on  purpose  to  see  him).  "  We  shall  have  gen- 
darmes killed — I  know  that  from  my  spies ;  and  the  trial  will 
be  an  ugly  business.  No  jury  will  be  got  to  convict  with  a 
prospect  of  the  hatred  of  twenty  or  thirty  families  before 
them ;  they  will  not  give  us  the  heads  of  the  murderers,  nor 
the  amount  of  penal  servitude  which  we  shall  require  for  the 
accomplices.  The  utmost  we  should  obtain,  if  you  conducted 
the  prosecution  in  person,  would  be  a  few  years'  imprison- 
ment for  the  worst  offenders.  It  is  better  to  shut  our  eyes, 
for,  if  we  keep  them  open,  the  end  of  it  all  will  be  a  collision 
which  will  cost  lives,  and  perhaps  six  thousand  francs  to  the 
Government,  to  say  nothing  of  the  expense  of  keeping  the 
men  in  the  hulks.  That  is  paying  exceedingly  dear  for  a  vic- 
tory which  will  make  the  weakness  of  justice  apparent  to  all 
eyes." 

Montcornet  was  incapable  of  suspecting  the  influence  of 
"  mediocracy  "  in  the  valley,  so  he  never  so  much  as  men- 
tioned Gaubertin,  who  stirred  up  and  rekindled  the  smoulder- 
ing flames. 

When  breakfast  was  over,  the  baron  took  Montcornet's  arm 
and  carried  him  off  to  the  prefect's  study.  When  they  issued 
from  this  conference  Montcornet  wrote  to  his  wife  that  he  was 
setting  out  for  Paris,  and  should  not  return  for  a  week.  The 
wisdom  of  the  measures  advised  by  Baron  Bourlac  will  be  seen 
later  on,  when  they  were  carried  into  execution.  If  a  way 
yet  remained  to  the  Aigues  of  escaping  the  "  ill-will,"  it  was 
only  through  the  policy  which  Bourlac  privately  recommended 
to  Montcornet. 


174  THE  PEASANTRY. 

These  explanations  will  seem  tedious  to  those  who  care  for 
nothing  but  the  interest  of  the  story,  but  it  is  worth  while  to 
observe  here  that  the  historian  of  manners  is  bound  by  rules 
even  more  stringent  than  those  which  control  the  historian  of 
fact.  The  historian  of  manners  is  bound  to  make  everything 
appear  probable — even  truth  itself,  while,  in  the  domain  of 
history  proper,  the  impossible  requires  no  apology ;  these  facts 
actually  happened,  and  the  writer  simply  records  them.  The 
ups  and  downs  of  family  and  social  life  are  created  by  a  host 
of  small  causes,  and  every  one  of  these  has  a  bearing  on  the 
event. 

The  man  of  science  must  clear  away  the  masses  of  an  ava- 
lanche which  swept  away  whole  villages,  to  show  you  the 
fallen  fragments  of  stone  on  the  mountain  side  where  the  mass 
of  snow  first  began  to  gather.  If  this  were  merely  the  story 
of  a  man's  suicide — there  are  five  hundred  suicides  in  Paris 
every  year — it  is  a  hackneyed  melodrama,  and  every  one  is 
content  with  the  briefest  account  of  the  victim's  motives ;  but 
that  Property  should  commit  suicide  ! — who  will  believe  it,  in 
these  days  when  wealth  appears  to  be  dearer  than  life  itself? 
De  re  vestra  agitur,  wrote  the  fabulist — this  story  touches  the 
interests  of  all  owners  of  property.  Let  it  borne  in  mind  that 
if  a  canton  and  a  little  country  town  are  in  league,  in  the 
present  instance,  against  an  old  general  who,  despite  his  reck- 
less courage,  had  escaped  the  hazards  of  countless  previous 
battles,  the  same  kind  of  conspiracy  is  set  on  foot,  in  more 
than  one  department,  against  men  who  are  striving  for  the 
general  good.  Every  man  of  genius,  every  great  statesman, 
every  great  agricultural  reformer,  every  innovator,  in  short,  is 
continually  threatened  by  this  kind  of  coalition. 

This  last  indication  of  what  may  be  called  the  political 
bearing  of  the  story  not  only  brings  out  every  actor  in  his 
true  aspect  and  gives  significance  to  the  most  trifling  details 
of  the  drama:  it  turns  a  searching  light  upon  a  scene  where 
all  social  interests  form  the  stage-mechanism. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  175 

X. 

A  HAPPY  WOMAN'S  PRESENTIMENTS. 

As  the  general  stepped  into  his  carriage  and  drove  away  to 
the  prefecture,  the  countess  reached  the  Avonne  gate,  where 
Michaud  and  Olympe  had  taken  up  their  abode  some  eighteen 
months  ago. 

Any  one  who  remembered  the  hunting-lodge  in  its  previous 
condition,  described  above,  might  have  thought  that  the  place 
had  been  rebuilt.  The  bricks  that  had  dropped  out  or  suffered 
from  the  weather  had  been  replaced  and  the  walls  had  been 
tuck-pointed  ;  the  white  balusters  stood  out  against  a  bluish 
background  of  clean  slates,  and  the  whole  house  looked  cheer- 
ful once  more.  The  labyrinth  of  pig-styes  had  been  cleared 
away,  new  gravel  had  been  laid  down,  and  the  paths  were 
rolled  by  the  man  who  had  charge  of  the  alleys  in  the  park. 
The  window-facings,  entablatures,  and  cornices,  indeed  all 
the  carved  stonework,  had  been  restored,  and  the  monument 
of  the  past  shone  in  all  its  ancient  glory. 

The  poultry-yard,  stable,  and  cowsheds  had  been  removed 
to  the  precincts  by  the  pheasant-house  hidden  away  behind 
the  wall ;  all  the  unsightly  details  had  disappeared,  but  the 
sounds,  the  low  cooing,  and  the  flapping  of  wings  mingled 
with  the  ceaseless  murmur  of  the  forest  trees — a  most  delicate 
accompaniment  to  the  endless  song  of  Nature.  There  was 
something  of  the  wildness  of  lonely  forests  about  the  spot, 
something,  too,  of  the  trim  grace  of  an  English  park.  And 
the  hunting-lodge  looked  indescribably  stately,  fair,  and  a 
pleasant  dwelling,  now  that  its  surroundings  were  in  keeping 
with  the  exterior,  just  as  a  happy  young  housewife's  care  had 
entirely  transformed  the  lodge  within  since  the  days  of 
Courtecuisse's  brutish  slovenliness. 

It  was  in  the  height  of  summer.     The  scent  of  flowers  in 


176  THE  PEASANTRY. 

the  garden-beds  blended  with  the  wild  scent  of  the  woods 
and  of  mown  grass  from  the  meadows  in  the  park. 

The  countess  and  her  two  guests,  coming  along  a  winding 
footpath  that  led  to  the  hunting-lodge,  saw  Olympe  Michaud 
sitting  in  the  doorway  at  work  upon  baby  clothes.  The 
woman's  figure,  and  her  work  as  she  sat  there  sewing,  gave 
the  touch  of  human  interest,  the  final  touch  which  the  land- 
scape lacked ;  a  kind  of  interest  which  appeals  to  us  in  real 
life  so  strongly  that  there  are  painters  who  have  tried,  and 
tried  mistakenly,  to  introduce  it  into  landscape  pictures,  for- 
getting that  if  they  really  render  the  spirit  of  the  landscape 
upon  their  canvas  its  grandeur  reduces  the  human  figure  into 
insignificance.  The  scene,  as  we  actually  see  it,  is  always 
circumscribed  ;  the  spectator's  power  of  vision  can  only  include 
sufficient  of  the  background  to  place  the  figure  in  its  proper 
setting.  Poussin,  the  Raphael  of  France,  when  he  painted 
his  "Arcadian  Shepherds,"  subordinated  the  landscape  to  the 
figures;  his  insight  told  him  how  pitiable  and  poor  man 
becomes  in  a  canvas  where  Nature  takes  the  chief  place. 

Here  was  August  in  all  its  glory  among  fields  ready  for  the 
harvest,  a  picture  to  arouse  simple  and  strong  emotion.  It 
was  like  a  realization  of  the  dream  of  many  a  man  who  has 
come  to  long  for  rest  after  a  storm-tossed  existence  and  a  life 
of  change  made  up  of  good  and  evil  fortune. 

Let  us  give  the  history  of  this  household  in  a  few  words. 
When  Montcornet  had  first  talked  of  the  head-forester's  place 
at  the  Aigues,  Justin  Michaud  had  not  responded  very  warmly 
to  the  gallant  cavalry  officer's  advances.  He  was  thinking  at 
the  time  of  going  into  the  army  again,  but  in  the  thick  of  the 
conference  which  brought  him  frequently  to  the  H6tel  Mont- 
cornet,  Michaud  set  eyes  on  madame's  own  woman,  and  his 
ideas  underwent  a  change. 

The  girl  came  of  honest  farmers  in  Alen^on,  and  was  some- 
thing of  an  heiress,  for  she  had  expectations — twenty  or  thirty 
thousand  francs  would  be  hers  sooner  or  later ;  but  her  father 


THE  PEASANTRY.  177 

and  mother,  finding  themselves  in  difficulties  (a  not  uncommon 
case  with  tillers  of  the  soil  who  have  married  young,  and  whose 
parents  are  still  living),  and  consequently  unable  to  give  their 
daughter  any  education,  had  intrusted  her  to  the  young 
countess,  who  placed  her  about  her  person.  Mile.  Olympe 
Charel  was  not  allowed  to  take  her  meals  at  the  servants'  table. 
The  countess  had  her  instructed  in  dressmaking  and  plain 
needlework,  and  was  rewarded  by  the  whole-hearted  fidelity 
of  which  a  Parisian  stands  in  need. 

Olympe  Charel  was  a  pretty,  rather  plump  Norman,  with  a 
shade  of  gold  in  her  fair  hair,  and  bright  eyes  that  lighted  up 
her  face,  but  a  delicate,  haughtily  curved  nose  was  perhaps  one 
of  her  most  striking  characteristics,  and  a  certain  maidenliness 
in  spite  of  the  Spanish  curves  of  her  figure.  She  had  all  the 
air  of  distinction  which  a  young  girl,  of  extraction  somewhat 
above  the  laboring  class,  can  acquire  from  contact  with  a  mis- 
tress who  admits  her  to  a  certain  degree  of  intimacy.  She 
was  well-mannered  and  becomingly  dressed,  expressed  herself 
well,  and  carried  herself  with  ease.  Michaud  soon  fell  in  love, 
and  the  more  readily  when  he  learned  that  his  fair  one  would 
have  a  pretty  fortune  some  day. 

It  was  the  countess  who  made  difficulties.  She  was  unwilling 
to  lose  a  maid  so  useful  to  her;  but  when  Montcornet  unfolded 
his  plans  for  the  Aigues,  nothing  was  wanting  but  the  parents' 
consent  for  the  marriage  to  take  place,  and  that  consent  was 
promptly  given. 

Michaud,  like  his  master,  regarded  his  wife  as  a  superior 
being,  to  be  obeyed  without  reservation.  He  saw  before  him 
all  the  happiness  for  which  a  soldier  longs  when  he  leaves  the 
army,  a  quiet  life,  plenty  of  outdoor  occupation,  and  just  suf- 
ficient bodily  weariness  to  make  rest  delightful.  Michaud's 
courage  was  established  beyond  cavil,  yet  he  had  never  re- 
ceived any  serious  wound,  and  had  had  no  experience  of  the 
physical  suffering  which  sours  many  a  veteran's  temper.  Like 
all  really  strong  natures  he  was  equable,  and  his  wife  gave  him 
12 


178  THE   PEASANTRY. 

unbounded  love.  Their  life  at  the  lodge  had  been  one  long 
honeymoon,  with  no  discordant  note  in  their  surroundings  to 
break  in  upon  their  happiness.  Rare  fortune  !  Not  always 
do  the  circumstances  of  our  outward  life  harmonize  with  the 
life  of  the  inner  self. 

The  scene  was  so  picturesque  that  the  countess  stopped 
Blondet  and  the  Abbe  Brossette.  As  they  stood,  they  could 
see  the  charming  Mme.  Michaud  without  being  seen  by  her. 

"I  always  come  this  way  when  I  walk  in  the  park,"  the 
countess  said  in  a  whisper;  "I  like  to  look  at  the  hunting- 
lodge  and  its  pair  of  turtle-doves;  it  is  like  some  favorite 
beautiful  view  to  me."  She  leaned  on  Emile  Blondet's  arm, 
that  he  might  feel  the  meaning  underlying  her  words,  that 
where  speech  fell  short  touch  might  convey  a  subtle  signifi- 
cance which  women  will  divine. 

"I  wish  I  were  a  gatekeeper  at  the  Aigues !  "  exclaimed 

Blondet,  with  a  smile "  Why,  what  is  it  ?  "  he  added,  as 

a  shade  of  sadness  crossed  the  lady's  face  at  those  words. 

"  Nothing." 

Whenever  womankind  have  something  weighing  on  their 
minds,  they  will  tell  you  hypocritically  that  it  is  nothing. 

"  But  possibly  the  thought  that  preys  upon  us  would  seem 
very  trifling  to  you,  though  to  us  it  is  terrible.  I,  for  my  own 
part,  envy  Olympe  her  lot " 

"Wishes  are  heard  in  heaven?"  said  the  Abbe  Brossette, 
with  a  smile  that  relieved  the  solemnity  of  his  words. 

Something  in  Olympe's  attitude  and  expression  told  Mme. 
de  Montcornet  of  anxiety  and  fears,  and  she  too  grew  anxious. 
A  woman  can  read  another  woman's  thoughts  from  the  way 
she  draws  her  needle  in  and  out,  and,  indeed,  the  head- 
forester's  wife,  in  her  pretty  pink  dress,  her  hair  coiled  daintily 
about  her  head,  seemed  to  be  turning  over  sad  thoughts  in 
her  mind,  thoughts  but  little  in  keeping  with  her  dress,  her 
work,  and  the  sunny  day.  Now  and  again  she  looked  up  and 
fixed  unseeing  eyes  on  the  gravel  paths  or  the  green  thickets, 


SHE    LEANED    ON    EMILE    BLONDET'S    ARM. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  179 

and  the  anxious  expression  on  her  fair  forehead  was  the  more 
artlessly  displayed  because  she  thought  herself  unobserved. 

"And  I  was  envying  her!  What  can  darken  her  thoughts?" 
the  countess  said,  looking  at  the  cure. 

"  Can  you  explain,  madame,"  said  the  abbe,  speaking  softly, 
"  how  it  is  that  our  most  perfect  bliss  is  always  troubled  by 
dim  forebodings?" 

"Cure,"  said  Blondet  smiling,  "you  permit  yourself  Del- 
phic answers.  '  Nothing  is  stolen,  everything  is  paid  for,'  so 
Napoleon  said." 

"  Such  a  saying  in  the  Emperor's  mouth  becomes  a  gener- 
alization wide  as  humanity,"  said  the  abbe. 

"Well,  Olympe,  what  is  the  matter,  child?"  asked  the 
countess,  stepping  in  front  of  the  others  toward  her  ex-waiting- 
maid.  "You  look  dreamy  and  thoughtful.  Is  it  possible 
that  there  has  been  a  tiff  at  home?" 

Mme.  Michaud  rose  to  her  feet.  Her  face  wore  a  different 
expression  already. 

"  I  should  dearly  like  to  know  what  has  brought  the  shadow 
over  that  brow,  my  child,"  said  Emile  Blondet  paternally, 
"  when  we  are  almost  as  nicely  housed  here  as  the  Comte 
d'Artois  at  the  Tuileries.  This  is  like  a  nightingale's  nest  in 
a  thicket.  And  have  we  not  the  bravest  man  of  the  Young 
Guard  for  a  husband,  a  fine  fellow,  who  loves  us  to  distrac- 
tion ?  If  I  had  known  the  advantages  Montcornet  offers  you 
here,  I  would  have  left  off  writing  padding  for  newspapers 
and  turned  head-keeper  myself!  " 

"  Oh,  this  is  not  the  place  for  any  one  with  your  genius, 
sir!"  said  Olympe,  smiling  back  at  him,  as  if  he  and  she 
were  old  acquaintances. 

"Why,  my  dear  little  woman,  what  is  the  matter?"  asked 
the  countess. 

"  Well,  then,  my  lady,  I  am  afraid 

"Afraid!  of  what?"  the  countess  asked  quickly.  The 
words  put  her  in  mind  at  once  of  Mouche  and  Fourchon. 


180  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  Afraid  of  the  wolves  ?  "  suggested  Emile,  making  a  warn- 
ing sign  which  Olympe  failed  to  understand. 

"  No,  sir,  it  is  the  peasants.  In  Perche,  where  I  was  born, 
there  were  certainly  a  few  bad  characters.  But  I  could  not 
believe  that  there  would  be  such  bad  people,  and  so  many  of 
them  in  a  place,  as  there  are  here.  I  do  not  pretend  to  med- 
dle in  Michaud's  business,  but  he  trusts  the  peasants  so  little 
that  he  goes  armed  in  broad  daylight  if  he  is  going  through 
the  forest.  He  tells  his  men  to  be  always  on  the  lookout. 
Now  and  again  there  are  figures  prowling  about  here ;  they 
mean  no  good.  The  other  day  I  was  going  along  by  the  wall 
to  the  spring  at  the  head  of  the  little  stream  with  the  sandy 
bed,  which  flows  through  the  wood  and  out  into  the  park 
through  the  grating  five  hundred  paces  away.  They  call  it 
the  Silver  Spring,  because  Bouret  (so  they  say)  strewed  silver 
spangles  in  it.  Do  you  know  it,  my  lady?  Very  well,  then, 
there  were  two  women  there  washing  clothes,  just  where  the 
stream  crosses  the  footpath  to  Conches.  I  heard  them  talk- 
ing ;  they  did  not  know  that  I  was  near.  You  can  see  our 
house  from  the  spot.  The  two  old  creatures  were  looking  at  it 
and  one  said  to  the  other,  '  What  a  lot  of  expense  they  are 
going  to  for  him  that  has  taken  old  Courtecuisse's  place  !  ' 
Then  the  other  one  said,  'Wouldn't  you  have  to  pay  a  man 
well  for  plaguing  poor  folk,  as  he  does  ? '  '  He  will  not  plague 
them  long/  answered  the  first  one  ;  *  this  sort  of  thing  must 
be  put  a  stop  to.  After  all,  we  have  a  right  to  cut  wood. 
Madame  des  Aigues,  that's  gone,  allowed  us  to  take  faggots. 
We  have  done  it  these  thirty  years;  so  it  is  an  established' 
right.'  'We  shall  see  how  things  go  this  winter,'  the  second 
one  went  on.  '  My  man  has  sworn,  I  know,  by  all  that's 
sacred,  that  we  shall  get  our  firewood,  and  that  all  the  gen- 
darmerie on  earth  shall  not  hinder  us,  and  that  he  will  do  it 
himself,  and  so  much  the  worse  for  them.'  '  Lord  sakes  !  we 
must  not  die  of  cold,  and  we  must  certainly  bake  our  bread ; ' 
said  the  first  woman.  '  They  don't  want  for  nothing,  they 


THE  PEASANTRY.  181 

don't !  That  blackguard  Michaud's  little  wife  will  be  well 
taken  care  of !  '  In  fact,  my  lady,  they  said  shocking  things 
about  me,  and  you,  and  Monsieur  le  Comte.  Then  at  last 
they  said  that  first  the  farm  buildings  would  be  fired,  and 
then  the  castle " 

"Pooh  !  "  said  Emile,  "old  wives'  gossip.  They  used  to 
rob  the  general ;  now  they  will  not  rob  him  any  longer  and 
they  are  furious :  that  is  all.  Just  bear  in  mind  that  the  Gov- 
ernment is  always  the  strongest  everywhere,  even  in  Burgundy; 
and  they  would  soon  have  a  regiment  of  horse  down  here  if 
there  was  any  occasion  for  it." 

The  cure  behind  the  countess  was  making  signals  to  Olympe 
to  cut  short  the  tale  of  fears,  due  surely  to  the  second-sight 
of  strong  love.  When  a  soul  finds  its  all-in-all  in  another 
soul,  it  scans  the  whole  horizon  about  that  central  figure  to 
discern  the  elements  of  the  future.  Love  brings  a  woman  the 
presentiments  which  at  a  later  day  become  the  second-sight 
of  motherhood.  Hence  the  melancholy  and  unaccountable 
moods  of  sadness  which  bewilder  men.  The  great  cares  and 
constant  stir  of  life  prevent  this  concentration  in  a  man,  but 
for  a  woman  all  strong  love  becomes  an  active  contemplation 
more  or  less  lucid,  more  or  less  profound,  according  to  indi- 
vidual character. 

"Come,  child,  show  Monsieur  Emile  over  your  house," 
said  the  countess.  These  new  thoughts  had  put  La  Pechina 
out  of  her  mind,  and  she  had  quite  forgotten  the  purpose  of 
her  visit. 

The  inside  of  the  house  had  been  restored  and  brought  into 
harmony  with  the  imposing  exterior.  An  architect  and 
workmen  had  come  from  Paris  (a  slight  warmly  resented  by 
Ville-aux-Fayes),  and  the  original  partition-walls  were  restored, 
so  that  now  there  were,  £s  at  first,  four  rooms  on  the  first 
floor.  An  old-fashioned  balustraded  wooden  staircase  rose  at 
the  further  end  of  the  lobby,  behind  it  lay  the  kitchen,  and 
on  cither  side  of  it  the  two  oak-paneled  parlors  with  coats  of 


182  THE  PEASANTRY. 

arms  painted  on  the  ceilings.  The  furniture  had  been  chosen 
to  match  these  old-fashioned  decorations  by  the  artist  who 
had  restored  the  rooms  at  the  Aigues. 

In  those  days  it  was  not  the  fashion  to  set  an  exaggerated 
value  on  the  wreckage  of  bygone  centuries.  The  lumber 
rooms  of  furniture-stores  at  Ville-aux-Fayes  were  full  of  old 
high-backed  tapestry- covered  chairs  in  carved  walnut-wood, 
console  tables,  old  timepieces,  tables,  sconces,  and  woven 
hangings ;  solid  furniture  worth  half  as  much  again  as  the 
flimsy  stuff  turned  out  by  the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine.  Two 
or  three  cartloads  of  this  old  lumber,  carefully  chosen  by  the 
aforesaid  architect,  and  some  disused  furniture  from  the  castle, 
had  transformed  the  parlor  at  the  Avonne  gate  into  something 
like  an  artist's  creation.  The  dining-room  had  been  painted 
the  color  of  the  natural  wood,  a  paper  of  the  kind  known  as 
Highland-plaid  covered  the  walls.  Mme.  Michaud  had  hung 
white  green-fringed  dimity  curtains  in  the  windows,  the  ma- 
hogany chairs  were  covered  with  green  stuff,  and  two  huge 
mahogany  sideboards  and  a  mahogany  dining-table  completed 
the  furniture.  Prints  of  soldiers  adorned  the  walls.  The 
keeper's  guns  were  stacked  on  either  side  of  the  porcelain 
stove.  Rumor  exaggerated  these  inexpensive  glories  until 
they  became  the  last  word  of  Oriental  luxury.  Strange  it  was ! 
These  things  aroused  Gaubertin's  covetousness,  and  when,  in 
his  own  mind,  he  pulled  the  Aigues  to  pieces,  he  reserved  that 
palatial  lodge  for  himself. 

The  three  principal  bedrooms  occupied  the  second  floor. 
Here  you  beheld  those  India-muslin  curtains  associated  in  a 
Parisian's  mind  with  the  pecular  notions  and  mental  attitude 
of  those  who  conform  to  bourgeois  standards.  Here,  if  Mme. 
Michaud  had  been  left  to  herself,  she  would  have  had  satin 
wall-papers.  Her  own  room  contained  a  four-post  bedstead, 
with  a  curving  head  and  coronal  from  which  the  embroidered 
muslin  curtains  hung.  The  rest  of  the  furniture  was  of  the 
ordinary  mahogany,  Utrecht-velvet-covered  kind  to  be  seen 


THE  PEASANTRY.  183 

everywhere;  but  the  mantel  displayed  an  alabaster  clock 
flanked  by  two  gauze-shrouded  candlesticks  and  vases  of  arti- 
ficial flowers  beneath  glass  shades — the  quartermaster's  mar- 
riage-gifts to  his  bride.  The  rooms  in  the  roof,  where  La 
Pechina,  the  cook,  and  the  man  belonging  to  the  establish- 
ment were  lodged,  had  also  shared  in  the  benefits  of  the 
restoration. 

"  Olympe,  child,  there  is  something  else,"  said  the  countess 
(she  had  gone  into  Mme.  Michaud's  room,  leaving  Emile  and 
the  cure,  who  went  downstairs  together,  when  they  heard  the 
bedroom  door  close). 

The  Abbe  Brossette  had  managed  to  get  a  word  with  Mme. 
Michaud.  So  now,  to  avoid  mentioning  the  fears  which  were 
far  more  serious  than  her  words  had  led  them  to  suppose,  she 
made  a  mysterious  communication  which  reminded  Mme.  de 
Montcornet  of  the  purpose  of  her  visit. 

"  I  love  Michaud,  my  lady,  as  you  know.  Very  well,  then, 
would  you  be  pleased  to  have  a  rival  always  with  you  in  the 
house?  " 

"A  rival!  " 

"Yes,  my  lady.  That  little  gypsy  you  gave  to  me  to  look 
after  has  fallen  in  love  with  Michaud.  She  does  not  know  it 
herself,  poor  child  !  For  a  long  while  her  behavior  was  a 
mystery  to  me,  but  the  mystery  was  cleared  up  a  few  days 
ago." 

"  A  girl  of  thirteen !  " 

"Yes,  my  lady.  And  you  will  admit  that  a  woman  three 
months  advanced  in  pregnancy,  who  means  to  nurse  her  child 
herself,  may  have  fears.  I  could  not  tell  you  that  before 
those  gentlemen,  so  I  said  things  that  meant  nothing,"  the 
generous  woman  added  adroitly. 

Olympe  Michaud's  anxiety  on  Genevieve  Niseron's  account 
was  exceedingly  small,  but  she  went  in  mortal  terror  for  her 
husband,  and  the  peasants  who  had  aroused  her  fears  took  a 
malicious  delight  in  keeping  them  alive. 


184  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"And  what  opened  your  eyes?" 

"Nothing  and  everything!"  Olympe  answered,  looking 
full  at  the  countess.  "Poor  little  thing,  she  is  as  slow  as  a 
tortoise  over  anything  that  I  tell  her  to  do,  and  as  quick  as  a 
lizard  if  Justin  asks  her  for  the  least  trifle.  She  quivers  like 
a  leaf  at  the  sound  of  my  husband's  voice ;  her  face,  when 
she  looks  at  him,  is  like  the  face  of  a  saint  rising  up  to  heaven ; 
but  she  does  not  know  what  love  is ;  she  does  not  suspect  that 
she  is  in  love." 

"Poor  child!"  said  the  countess,  unconscious  that  her 
smile  and  tone  revealed  her  thoughts.  Mme.  Michaud  smiled 
an  answer  to  her  young  mistress'  smile. 

"  Genevieve  is  glum,  for  instance,  when  Justin  is  out  of  the 
house ;  if  I  ask  her  what  she  is  thinking  about,  she  says  that 
she  is  afraid  of  Monsieur  Rigou — all  rubbish !  She  thinks 
that  every  one  is  after  her — and  she  as  black  as  the  chimney 
flue !  When  Justin  is  making  his  round  of  a  night  in  the 
woods,  the  child  is  every  bit  as  nervous  as  I  am.  If  I  open 
the  window  when  I  hear  my  husband's  horse  coming  I  can 
see  a  light  in  her  room,  which  shows  that  La  Pechina  (as  they 
call  her)  is  sitting  up,  waiting  for  him  to  come  in.  Like  me, 
she  does  not  go  to  bed  till  he  comes  home." 

"Thirteen  years  old!"  said  the  countess;  "unfortunate 
girl " 

"  Unfortunate  ?  "  echoed  Olympe.  "  Oh  !  no.  Her  child's 
passion  will  save  her." 

"From  what?" 

"  From  the  fate  of  almost  every  girl  of  her  age  hereabout. 
She  is  not  so  plain-looking  now  since  I  have  polished  her  up, 
and  there  is  something  uncommon  about  her,  something  wild, 
that  men  find  taking.  She  has  altered  so  much  that  you 
would  not  know  her,  my  lady.  There  is  Nicolas,  the  son  of 
that  abominable  man  at  the  Grand-I-Vert,  and  one  of  the 
worst  rogues  in  the  place ;  he  bears  the  child  a  grudge  and 
hunts  her  like  game.  You  could  scarcely  believe  that  a  rich 


THE  PEASANTRY.  185 

man  like  Monsieur  Rigou,  who  changes  his  servant  every  three 
years,  could  persecute  an  ugly  little  girl  of  twelve,  but  it 
really  seems  as  if  Nicolas  Tonsard  was  after  La  Pechina; 
Justin  told  me  as  much.  It  would  be  a  shocking  thing,  for 
the  people  here  live  just  like  beasts,  but  Justin  and  the  two 
servants  and  I  watch  over  the  child ;  so  be  easy,  my  lady ; 
she  never  goes  out  except  in  broad  daylight,  and  then  she 
only  goes  from  here  to  the  Conches  gate.  If  by  chance 
she  should  fall  into  a  trap,  her  feeling  for  Justin  would  give 
her  strength  and  will  to  resist,  as  a  woman  who  cares  about 
another  can  resist  a  man  she  detests." 

"  I  came  here  on  her  account,"  said  the  lady  ;  "I  had  no 
idea  how  much  the  visit  was  needed  for  your  sake,  for  she  will 
not  always  be  thirteen.  The  child  will  grow  handsomer." 

"Oh!  I  am  quite  sure  of  Justin,  my  lady,"  Olympe  said, 
smiling.  "  What  a  man  !  what  a  heart !  If  you  only  knew 
how  deep  his  gratitude  is  to  the  general,  to  whom  (he  says) 
he  owes  his  happiness !  He  is  only  too  devoted ;  he  would 
risk  his  life  as  if  he  were  in  the  army  still ;  he  forgets  that  he 
may  be  a  father." 

"Well,"  said  the  countess,  with  a  glance  that  brought  the 
color  into  Olympe' s  face,  "  I  was  sorry  to  lose  you  ;  but  now 
that  I  see  your  happiness  I  have  no  regrets  left.  How  sublime 
and  noble  married  love  is!  "  she  added,  thinking  aloud  the 
thought  which  she  had  not  dared  to  utter  in  the  good  abbe's 
presence.  Virginie  de  Troisville  stood  lost  in  musings,  and 
Olympe  Michaud  respected  her  mistress'  mood. 

"Let  us  see,"  the  countess  said,  speaking  like  one  who 
awakes  from  a  dream.  "  Is  this  little  one  honest?  " 

"As  honest  as  I  am  myself,  my  lady." 

"Discreet?" 

"As  a  tomb." 

"  Has  she  a  grateful  nature  ?  " 

"  Oh,  my  lady,  she  has  fits  of  humility,  signs  of  an  angelic 
nature,  she  comes  and  kisses  my  hands  and  says  things  that 


186  THE  PEASANTRY. 

would  amaze  you.  '  Is  it  possible  to  die  of  love  ? '  she  asked 
me  the  day  before  yesterday.  '  What  makes  you  ask  me 
that?  '  said  I.  '  I  wanted  to  know  if  it  was  a  disease.'  " 

"  Did  she  say  that  ?  "  exclaimed  the  countess. 

"If  I  could  remember  all  that  she  says,  I  could  tell  you 
much  stranger  things  than  that,"  said  Olympe.  "  It  looks  as 
if  she  knows  more  about  it  than  I  do." 

"Do  you  think,  my  dear,  that  she  might  take  your  place? 
for  I  cannot  do  without  an  Olympe,"  said  the  countess,  with 
something  like  sadness  in  her  smile. 

"Not  yet,  my  lady,  she  is  too  young;  in  two  years'  time 
she  might.  Then,  if  she  must  go  away,  I  will  let  you  know. 
She  must  be  trained  first ;  she  knows  nothing  of  the  world. 
Genevieve's  grandfather,  old  Niseron,  is  one  of  those  men 
who  would  have  his  throat  cut  sooner  than  tell  a  lie;  he 
would  die  of  hunger  sooner  than  touch  anything  intrusted  to 
him.  He  holds  to  his  opinions,  and  his  granddaughter  has 
been  brought  up  in  the  same  way  of  thinking.  La  Pechina 
would  think  herself  your  equal,  for  the  good  man  has  made  a 
Republican  of  her,  as  he  puts  it ;  just  as  old  Fourchon  has 
made  a  vagabond  of  Mouche.  I  myself  laugh  at  these  flights, 
but  you  might  be  annoyed  by  them.  She  would  worship  you 
for  your  kindness,  but  she  would  not  look  up  to  you  as  above 
her  in  station.  How  can  it  be  helped  ?  She  is  as  wild  as  a 
swallow.  The  mother,  too,  counts  for  something  in  all  this." 

" Then  who  was  the  mother? " 

"Do  you  not  know  the  story,  my  lady?  Oh,  well,  old 
Niseron,  the  sacristan  at  Blangy,  had  a  son,  a  fine  strapping 
young  fellow  he  was,  they  say,  and  he  was  drawn  by  the  great 
requisition.  Young  Niseron  was  still  only  a  gunner  in  1809, 
in  a  regiment  stationed  in  the  heart  of  Illyria  and  Dalmatia. 
Then  there  came  orders  to  march  at  once  through  Hungary  to 
cut  off  the  retreat  of  the  Austrians  if  the  Emperor  should  win 
the  battle  of  Wagram.  Michaud  was  in  Dalmatia,  and  he 
told  me  all  about  it.  While  they  were  at  Zahara,  young  Nise- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  187 

ron,  being  a  very  handsome  young  fellow,  won  the  heart  of  a 
Montenegrin  girl  from  the  hills,  who  looked  not  unkindly  on 
the  French  garrison.  After  they  left  the  place  the  girl  found 
it  impossible  to  stay  in  it,  she  had  lowered  herself  so  much  in 
her  people's  eyes ;  so  Zena  Kropoli — '  the  Frenchwoman,'  as 
they  scornfully  called  her — followed  the  regiment.  After  the 
peace  she  came  to  France.  Auguste  Niseron  now  asked  for 
leave  to  marry  the  Montenegrin  a  little  while  before  Gene- 
vieve was  born,  but  the  poor  thing  died  at  Vincennes  shortly 
after  the  birth  of  the  child  in  January,  1810.  The  papers 
which  you  must  have,  if  a  marriage  is  to  be  valid,  came  a  few 
days  too  late,  so  Auguste  Niseron  wrote  to  ask  his  father  to 
come  for  the  child,  to  bring  a  wet-nurse  with  him,  and  to  take 
charge  of  it ;  and  it  was  very  well  he  did  so,  for  he  was  killed 
soon  after  by  a  shell  at  Montereau.  The  child  was  baptized 
Genevieve  at  Soulanges.  Mademoiselle  Laguerre  was  much 
touched  by  the  case  and  took  an  interest  in  the  child;  it 
seems  as  if  it  were  decreed  that  Genevieve  should  be  adopted 
by  the  gentry  at  the  Aigues.  Time  was  when  Niseron  had  all 
the  baby-clothes  from  the  castle,  and  he  was  helped  with 
money  too." 

The  countess  and  Olympe,  standing  by  the  window,  saw 
Michaud  come  up  to  Blondet  and  the  Abbe  Brossette,  who 
were  chatting  as  they  walked  up  and  down  in  the  sanded 
semi-circular  space  which  corresponded  to  the  crescent  out- 
side the  park  palings. 

"Where  can  she  be?"  asked  the  lady;  "you  have  made 
me  extremely  curious  to  see  her." 

"  She  has  gone  to  take  the  milk  to  Mademoiselle  Gaillard 
at  the  Conches  gate.  She  cannot  be  far  away,  for  she  has 
been  gone  for  more  than  an  hour." 

"Oh,  well,  I  will  go  to  meet  her  with  these  gentlemen," 
said  Mme.  de  Montcornet,  and  she  went  downstairs.  She 
was  just  opening  her  sunshade  when  Michaud  came  up  to  tell 
her  that  her  husband  would  probably  be  away  for  two  days. 


188  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"Monsieur  Michaud,"  the  countess  began  quickly,  "tell 
me  the  plain  truth.  Something  serious  is  afoot.  Your  wife 
is  nervous ;  and  really,  if  the  place  is  full  of  such  people  as 
old  Fourchon,  no  one  could  live  in  it " 

"If  it  were  like  that  we  should  not  be  on  our  legs,  my 
lady,"  said  Michaud,  laughing,  "  for  it  would  be  very  easy 
to  get  rid  of  us  keepers.  The  peasants  call  out,  that  is  all. 
But  as  for  proceeding  from  squalling  to  acting,  from  petty 
theft  to  crime,  they  set  too  much  store  on  their  own  lives  and 
the  open  air  for  that.  Olympe  must  have  been  repeating 
some  gossip  that  frightened  her — but  a  dream  would  frighten 
her  just  now,"  he  added,  taking  his  wife's  arm  and  laying  it 
on  his  own  in  a  way  that  bade  her  say  no  more  of  her  fears. 

"  Cornevin  !  Juliette!"  called  Mme.  Michaud.  The  old 
servant's  face  soon  appeared  at  the  window.  "lam  going 
out  for  a  minute  or  two.  Look  after  the  house." 

Two  huge  dogs  began  to  bark;  evidently  the  lodge  by  the 
Avonne  gate  was  not  ill  garrisoned.  The  barking  of  the  dogs 
brought  out  Cornevin  from  behind  the  wall — Cornevin,  a  Per- 
cheron  and  Olympe1  s  foster-father,  with  a  face  such  as  Perche 
alone  can  produce.  Cornevin  must  surely  have  been  a  Chouan 
in  '94  and  '99. 

The  whole  party  went  with  the  countess  along  that  one  of 
the  six  graveled  ways  which  went  by  the  side  of  the  Silver 
Spring  toward  the  Conches  gate.  Mme.  de  Montcornet  and 
Blondet  walked  ahead  of  the  others.  The  cure,  the  head- 
forester,  and  Olympe  talked  with  lowered  voices  over  this 
revelation  which  had  been  made  to  the  lady. 

"  Perhaps  it  is  all  for  the  best,"  concluded  the  cure,  "  for 
if  Madame  de  Montcornet  chooses  we  may  work  a  change  in 
these  people  by  kindness  and  gentleness." 

They  had  come  about  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  from  the 
lodge  by  this  time,  and  had  passed  the  point  where  the  stream 
flowed  in,  when  the  countess  saw  the  broken  shards  of  a  red 
earthen  pitcher  on  the  path ;  milk  had  been  spilt. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  189 

"What  has  happened  to  the  child?"  she  asked,  calling  to 
Michaud  and  his  wife,  who  had  turned  back. 

"  The  same  little  mishap  that  befell  the  milkmaid  in  the 
fable,"  said  Blondet. 

"  No,"  said  the  abbe,  looking  about  him,  "  some  one  sprang 
out  upon  the  poor  child  and  chased  her." 

"Yes.  Those  are  certainly  La  Pechina's  footprints,"  said 
Michaud.  The  footmarks  turned  so  sharply  that  evidently 
the  whole  thing  had  happened  suddenly.  The  little  girl,  in 
her  terror,  must  have  made  a  dash  for  the  lodge  and  tried  to 
reach  home. 

The  whole  party  followed  the  track  pointed  out  by  the 
forester,  and  saw  that  the  footmarks  came  to  an  abrupt  end 
in  the  middle  of  the  path,  about  a  hundred  paces  from  the 
broken  pitcher. 

"  There  she  turned  off  toward  the  Avonne,"  said  Michaud. 
"  Perhaps  some  one  cut  off  her  retreat." 

"  Why,  she  has  been  away  for  more  than  an  hour  !  "  cried 
Mme.  Michaud. 

The  same  dismay  was  visible  in  all  faces.  The  cure  hur- 
ried toward  the  lodge,  looking  along  the  path ;  and  Michaud, 
with  the  same  idea  in  his  mind,  went  in  the  other  direction 
toward  Conches. 

"  Good  heavens  !  she  had  a  fall  here,"  said  Michaud,  re- 
turning from  the  point  where  the  footprints  ceased  in  the 
direction  of  the  Silver  Spring  to  the  other  point,  where  they 
came  to  an  end  in  the  middle  of  the  path.  "  Look  here  !  " 
He  pointed  to  a  spot  where  every  one  saw  at  once  the  marks 
of  a  headlong  fall. 

"  Those  footprints  that  point  toward  the  woods  are  marks 
of  stocking-soles,"  said  the  cure. 

"  Of  a  woman's  foot,"  said  the  countess. 

"  But  down  there,  where  the  pitcher  was  broken,  there  are 
a  man's  footprints,"  added  Michaud. 

"  There  is  only  one  set  of  footmarks  that  I  can  see,"  said 


190  THE  PEASANTRY. 

the  cure,  who  had  returned  from  following  the  woman's  track 
as  far  as  the  wood. 

"  Some  one  had  caught  her  up  and  carried  her  off  into  the 
wood  !  "  cried  Michaud. 

"  If  the  footmarks  are  made  by  a  woman  the  thing  is  in- 
explicable," added  Blondet. 

"That  abominable  Nicolas  must  have  been  at  his  games," 
said  Michaud ;  "  he  has  been  lying  in  wait  for  La  Pechina  for 
several  days  past.  I  waited  for  two  hours  this  morning  under 
the  Avonne  bridge  to  catch  my  gentleman  \  perhaps  he  has  got 
some  woman  to  help  him." 

"It  is  shocking  !  "  cried  the  countess. 

"They  look  upon  it  as  a  joke,"  said  the  cure,  half  sadly, 
half  bitterly. 

"Oh,  La  Pechina  would  not  let  them  hold  her!"  said 
Michaud,  "  she  is  just  the  one  to  swim  the  Avonne.  I  will  go 
and  look  along  the  river.  Olympe,  dear,  you  must  go  home. 
And  perhaps  you,  gentlemen,  will  go  with  my  lady  along  the 
way  to  Conches." 

"  O  what  a  neighborhood  !  "  said  the  countess. 

"There  are  blackguards  everywhere,"  Blondet  suggested. 

"  Monsieur  le  Cure,  is  it  true  that  my  interference  saved 
this  child  from  old  Rigou's  clutches?"  asked  Mme.  de  Mont- 
cornet. 

"Any  girl  under  the  age  of  fifteen  whom  you  tak^  to  the 
castle  will  be  rescued  from  that  monster,"  said  the  Abbe  Bros- 
sette.  "  When  the  apostate  tried  to  get  hold  of  the  child,  he 
meant  to  slake  his  thirst  for  vengeance  as  well  as  his  licentious 
desires.  When  I  took  old  Niseron  as  sacristan,  I  made  him 
understand  what  Rigou  meant ;  Rigou  used  to  talk  of  making 
reparation  for  the  injuries  done  him  by  his  uncle,  Monsieur 
Niseron,  my  predecessor.  The  ex-mayor  bore  me  a  grudge 
for  that,  and  it  swelled  his  hate.  Old  Niseron  gave  Rigou 
solemn  warning  that  if  any  harm  came  to  Genevieve,  he  would 
kill  him,  and  that  he  held  Rigou  responsible  for  any  attempt 


THE  PEASANTRY.  191 

upon  the  child.  I  should  not  be  very  far  wrong  if  I  saw  some 
infernal  plot  of  his  in  Nicolas  Tonsard's  behavior.  He  thinks 
he  can  do  as  he  likes  here." 

"  But  is  he  not  afraid  of  the  law?  "  asked  Blondet. 

"  In  the  first  place,  Rigou  is  the  public  prosecutor's  father- 
in-law,"  the  cure  began.  There  was  a  pause  ;  then  he  went 
on.  "You  would  not  imagine  how  utterly  indifferent  the 
divisional  police  and  the  criminal  department  are  here  with 
regard  to  such  things.  So  long  as  the  peasants  refrain  from 
arson  and  murder,  so  long  as  they  pay  the  taxes  and  do  not 
poison  people,  they  may  do  as  they  please  among  themselves, 
and  as  they  have  not  a  vestige  of  religious  principle,  the  state 
of  things  is  shocking.  On  the  other  side  of  the  valley  there 
are  helpless  old  men,  past  work,  who  are  afraid  to  stay  in  their 
homes  lest  they  should  be  starved  to  death  ;  they  are  out  in 
the  fields  as  long  as  their  legs  will  carry  them  ;  they  know  that 
if  they  once  take  to  their  beds  they  will  die — of  sheer  hunger. 
Monsieur  Sarcus,  the  justice  of  the  peace,  says  that  if  all  crimi- 
nals were  brought  to  justice,  the  government  would  be  bank- 
rupt through  expenses  of  prosecution." 

"  Well,  there  is  a  magistrate  who  sees  things  as  they  are  !  " 
exclaimed  Blondet. 

"Ah,  his  lordship  the  bishop  knew  quite  well  how  things 
were  in  this  valley,  and  more  especially  in  this  commune," 
the  cure  continued.  "  Religion  k  the  only  remedy  for  such 
evils;  legislation  seems  to  me  to  be  powerless,  restricted  as 
it  is " 

The  cure  was  interrupted  by  shrieks  from  the  wood.  Emile 
Blondet  and  the  abb6,  followed  by  the  countess,  plunged 
boldly  in  the  direction  from  which  the  cries  came. 


192  THE  PEASANTRY. 


XI. 

THE    OARISTYS,    THE    EIGHTEENTH    ECLOGUE    OF    THEOCRITUS, 
LITTLE   APPRECIATED    IN   A  COURT   OF   ASSIZE. 

Something  of  the  sagacity  of  the  savage,  developed  in 
Michaud  by  his  new  calling,  together  with  a  newly  acquired 
knowledge  of  the  state  of  feeling  and  affairs  in  the  commune 
of  Blangy,  had  just  explained,  in  part,  a  third  Idyl,  modeled 
on  the  Greek.  Impecunious  swains  like  Nicolas  Tonsard  and 
well-to-do  seniors  of  the  stamp  of  old  Rigou  make  liberal 
translations  of  such  Idyls  (in  school  phrase)  for  the  use  of 
remote  country  districts. 

Nicolas,  Tonsard's  second  son,  had  drawn  an  unlucky  num- 
ber in  the  last  conscription.  Two  years  previously,  thanks  to 
the  united  efforts  of  Soudry,  Gaubertin,  and  Money-Sarcus, 
Nicolas'  older  brother  had  been  pronounced  unfit  for  military 
service,  on  account  of  some  imaginary  affection  of  the  muscles 
of  the  right  arm.  Jean-Louis'  subsequent  dexterity  in  hand- 
ling the  heaviest  implements  of  husbandry  had  been  much 
remarked,  and  had  caused  some  talk  in  the  district. 

So  Soudry,  Rigou,  and  Gaubertin,  who  watched  over  the 
family,  warned  Tonsard  that  Nicolas,  a  big,  tall  fellow,  must 
not  attempt  to  evade  the  law  of  conscription.  At  the  same 
time,  however,  both  the  worthy  mayor  of  Ville-aux-Fayes  and 
Rigou  had  so  lively  a  sense  of  the  necessity  of  keeping  on 
good  terms  with  a  bold  man  who  might  be  a  useful  engine  if 
properly  directed  against  the  Aigues,  that  Rigou  held  oat 
some  hope  to  the  Tonsards,  father  and  son. 

Catherine,  that  devoted  sister,  paid  the  unfrocked  mons  an 
occasional  visit,  and  was  advised  to  apply  to  the  general  and 
the  countess. 

"  He  maybe  would  not  be  sorry  to  do  it  to  make  things 
sweet,  and  anyway  it  would  be  so  much  got  out  of  the 


THE  PEASANTRY.  193 

enemy,"  said  the  public  prosecutor's  terrible  father-in-law  to 
Catherine,  demanding  counsel.  "  If  the  Upholsterer  refuses 
— well,  we  shall  see." 

In  Rigou's  forecasts  the  general's  refusal  was  one  more 
wrong  to  swell  the  account  of  injuries  done  to  the  peasants  by 
the  great  landowner,  as  well  as  a  fresh  cause  for  gratitude  to 
bind  Tonsard  to  the  coalition  if  the  ex-mayor's  crafty  brain 
should  hit  upon  some  way  of  liberating  Nicolas. 

Nicolas,  bound  to  present  himself  for  medical  examination 
in  a  few  days'  time,  founded  little  hope  on  the  general's  in- 
fluence, for  the  Aigues  had  several  grievances  against  the  Ton- 
sards.  Nicolas'  passion,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  his  fancy 
or  whim,  for  La  Pechina  was  so  heated  by  the  notion  of  an 
approaching  departure  which  left  him  no  time  to  carry  out  his 
projects  concerning  her  that  he  determined  to  try  violence. 

The  contempt  that  the  child  showed  her  persecutor,  to- 
gether with  her  energetic  resistance,  had  kindled  in  the  Love- 
lace of  the  Grand-I-Vert  a  fury  of  hate  that  equaled  his  frenzy 
of  desire.  For  three  days  he  had  lain  in  wait  for  La  Pechina, 
and  she,  poor  child,  knew  of  this.  Between  the  girl  and  Nic- 
olas there  was  the  same  mutual  recognition  that  there  is  be- 
tween the  sportsman  and  the  game.  La  Pechina  could  not  go 
beyond  the  great  iron  gates,  but  Nicolas  would  show  his  face  in 
one  of  the  paths  under  the  park  walls,  or  he  was  waiting  about 
on  the  bridge  over  the  Avonne.  She  could  soon  have  put 
herself  beyond  reach  of  this  hateful  persecution  by  speaking  to 
her  grandfather,  but  a  strange  fear,  perhaps  a  natural  instinct, 
leads  even  the  simplest-natured  girls  to  shrink  from  confiding 
in  their  natural  protectors  in  matters  of  this  kind. 

Genevieve,  moreover,  had  heard  old  Niseron  solemnly  swear 
that  he  would  kill  any  man  whatsoever  who  should  dare  (his 
own  expression)  "to  lay  a  finger  on  her."  (The  old  man 
imagined  that  the  white  aureola  of  his  own  seventy  blameless 
years  of  life  would  be  a  protection  to  his  little  granddaughter.) 
The  prospect  of  a  tragedy  positively  appalling  to  a  girl's  lively 
13 


194  THE  PEASANTRY. 

imagination  is  quite  sufficient  to  seal  her  lips;  there  is  no  need 
to  explore  the  recesses  of  her  heart  for  a  multiplication  of 
curious  reasons  for  her  silence. 

The  cow  at  the  Conches  gate  had  calved,  and  Mme.  Michaud 
was  daily  sending  milk  to  Gaillard's  daughter.  Before  La 
Pechina  set  out  on  this  errand,  she  always  made  a  survey  like 
a  cat  about  to  venture  forth  from  the  house.  She  saw  no 
sign  of  Nicolas;  she  "listened  to  the  silence,"  as  the  poet 
says,  and,  hearing  nothing,  thought  that  the  scoundrel  must 
have  gone  to  his  work.  The  peasants  had  begun  to  cut  their 
rye ;  they  always  finish  their  own  little  patches  early,  so  as  to 
be  ready  to  earn  the  extra  wages  paid  to  harvesters.  But 
Nicolas  was  not  the  man  to  make  much  ado  over  the  loss  of  a 
couple  of  days'  wages,  and  he  was  the  less  likely  to  grudge 
them  just  now  because  he  was  going  away  after  the  Soulanges 
fair,  and  to  "go  for  a  soldier  "  means  the  beginning  of  a  new 
life  for  the  peasant. 

But  when  La  Pechina,  with  her  pitcher  on  her  head,  had 
come  half-way,  Nicolas  scrambled  like  a  wildcat  down  the 
elm-tree,  where  he  lay  in  hiding  among  the  leaves,  und 
dropped  like  a  thunderbolt  at  her  feet.  La  Pechina  flung 
away  her  pitcher,  and  trusted  to  her  speed  to  reach  the  lodge. 
But  Catherine,  lying  in  ambush  a  hundred  paces  away,  sprang 
out  of  the  wood  and  ran  up  against  the  little  girl  with  such 
force  that  La  Pechina  fell  over.  Catherine  picked  her  up  still 
dazed  with  the  violent  shock,  and  carried  her  off  into  an  open 
space  among  the  trees  where  the  Silver  Spring  bubbled  up  in 
the  grass. 

Catherine  was  tall  and  strong.  In  all  respects  she  recalled 
the  models  selected  by  painters  and  sculptors  for  figures  of 
Liberty  and  the  ideal  Republic.  Her  beauty,  which  found 
favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  youth  of  the  valley,  was  of  the  same 
full-bosomed  type,  she  had  the  same  strong,  pliant  figure,  the 
same  muscular  lower  limbs,  the  plump  arms,  the  eyes  that 
gleamed  with  a  spark  of  fire,  the  proud  expression,  the  hair 


THE  PEASANTRY.  195 

grasped  and  twisted  in  thick  handfuls,  the  masculine  forehead, 
the  red  mouth,  the  lips  that  curled  back  with  a  smile  that  had 
something  almost  ferocious  in  it — such  a  smile  as  Delacroix 
and  David  (of  Angers)  caught  and  rendered  to  admiration. 
A  glowing  brunette,  the  image  of  the  people,  the  flames  of  in- 
surrection seemed  to  leap  forth  from  her  clear  tawny  eyes ; 
there  was  a  soldierly  insolence  in  their  piercing  gaze.  Cath- 
erine had  inherited  from  her  father  a  temper  so  violent  that 
every  other  member  of  the  family  at  the  tavern  feared  her, 
Tonsard  excepted. 

"Well,  how  do  you  feel,  old  girl?"  she  asked  ofLaPechina. 
Catherine,  for  her  own  ends,  had  set  her  victim  down  on  a 
little  knoll  beside  the  spring,  and  had  brought  her  to  her 
senses  by  splashing  cold  water  in  her  face. 

"  Where  am  I  ?  "  asked  the  little  girl,  opening  her  beautiful 
dark  eyes.  It  was  as  if  a  ray  of  sunlight  shone  from  them. 

"Ah !  if  it  hadn't  been  for  me,  you  would  be  dead  by  now," 
returned  Catherine. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  the  child,  still  quite  dizzy  with  her  fall. 
"  What  can  have  happened  to  me?  " 

"  You  stumbled  over  a  tree-root,  and  down  you  went  as  if  a 
bullet  had  struck  you.  Oil !  didn't  you  run,  too  !  You  bolted 
away  like  a  mad  thing  !  " 

"It  was  your  brother's  fault,  he  caused  the  accident,"  said 
La  P6china,  recollecting  the  sight  of  Nicolas. 

"  My  brother  ?  I  did  not  see  him,"  said  Catherine.  "  Poor 
Nicolas,  what  may  he  have  done  that  you  are  as  frightened  of 
him  as  if  he  were  a  bogey?  Isn't  he  better-looking  than  your 
Monsieur  Michaud?" 

"  Oh  !  "  said  La  Pechina  disdainfully. 

"  Come,  child,  you  are  laying  up  trouble  for  yourself  by 
being  so  fond  of  those  who  persecute  us  !  Why  are  you  not 
on  our  side?" 

"  Why  do  you  never  set  foot  in  a  church?  And  why  do 
you  steal  night  and  day?"  the  younger  girl  inquired. 


196  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  So  you  believe  what  the  masters  tell  you,  do  you?"  re- 
torted Catherine  scornfully,  and  without  suspicion  of  La 
Pechina's  attachment.  "  The  bourgeois  are  fond  of  us,  as 
they  are  fond  of  their  food  ;  they  must  have  a  plateful  of 
something  new  every  day.  Where  may  you  have  seen  the 
bourgeois  that  would  marry  one  of  us  peasant  girls?  Just 
you  see  whether  Money-Sarcus  will  allow  his  son  to  marry 
pretty  Gatienne  Giboulard  of  Auxerre,  though  her  father  is  a 
rich  man  and  a  cabinet-maker  !  You  have  never  been  to  the 
'Tivoli'  at  Soulanges,  Socquard's  place.  You  ought  to 
come.  You  would  see  the  bourgeois,  there,  that  you  would  ! 
Then  you  would  begin  to  see  that  they  are  hardly  worth  the 
money  that  we  make  out  of  them  when  we  get  hold  of  them. 
Just  you  come  to  the  fair  this  year." 

"  People  say  that  the  fair  at  Soulanges  is  very  fine!"  La 
Pechina  cried  childishly. 

"I  will  just  tell  you  what  it  is  in  two  words,"  Catherine 
went  on'.  "  If  you  are  pretty,  they  make  eyes  at  you.  What 
is  the  good  of  being  as  pretty  as  you  are  if  it  is  not  to  have 
the  men  admire  you  ?  Oh  !  the  first  time  I  heard  some  one 
say,  '  What  a  fine  girl  !  '  the  blood  in  my  veins  turned  to 
fire.  That  was  at  Socquard's,  when  the  dancing  was  in  full 
swing;  grandfather  was  playing  the  clarionet,  and  he  smiled, 
and  I  thought  the  'Tivoli'  as  big  and  as  fine  as  heaven. 
Why,  child,  it  is  all  lighted  up  with  argand  lamps  and  look- 
ing-glasses ;  you  might  think  you  were  in  paradise.  And  all 
the  gentlemen  from  Soulanges  and  Auxerre  and  Ville-aux- 
Fayes  are  there.  Ever  since  that  night  I  have  loved  the  place 
where  those  words  sounded  in  my  ears  like  military  music. 
You  would  bargain  away  your  eternity  to  hear  that  said  of 
you,  child,  by  the  man  you  have  a  liking  for  !  " 

"Why,  yes;  perhaps,"  said  La  Pechina  dreamily. 

"Just  come  and  hear  that  benediction  from  a  man's  lips; 
you  are  sure  to  have  it !  "  cried  Catherine.  "Lord,  a  girl  as 
smart  as  you  are  stands  a  good  chance  of  making  a  fine 


THE   PEASANTRY.  197 

match !  There  is  Monsieur  Lupin's  son,  Amaury,  he  has 
coats  with  gold  buttons  all  down  them;  he  would  be  very 
likely  to  ask  for  you  in  marriage  !  And  that  is  not  all,  by 
any  means  !  If  you  but  knew  what  a  cure  for  care  they  keep 
there!  Look  here — Socquard's  spiced  wine  would  make  you 
forget  the  biggest  troubles.  Only  imagine  it,  it  puts  fancies 
into  your  head,  you  feel  lighter  !  You  have  never  drunk 
spiced  wine,  have  you?  Oh,  well  then,  you  do  not  know 
what  life  is  !  " 

The  grown-up  person's  privilege  of  moistening  the  throat 
now  and  again  with  a  glass  of  spiced  wine  excites  the  curios- 
ity of  a  child  under  twelve  to  such  a  pitch  that  Genevieve 
once  had  put  to  her  lips  a  glass  that  the  doctor  ordered  for 
her  grandfather  when  the  old  man  was  ill.  That  experiment, 
and  a  sort  of  magical  memory  which  it  had  left  in  the  poor 
child's  mind,  may  explain  the  attentive  hearing  which  she 
gave  to  Catherine.  That  wicked  creature  had  counted  upon 
making  an  impression,  to  carry  out  in  full  a  plan  which  so  far 
had  met  with  success.  Doubtless  she  meant  that  her  victim, 
half-stunned  by  her  fall,  should  reach  a  stage  of  mental  in- 
toxication particularly  dangerous  for  a  country  girl  whose 
seldom-stirred  imagination  is  so  much  the  more  ardent  when 
once  heated.  The  spiced  wine,  kept  in  reserve,  was  to  com- 
plete the  task  of  turning  the  victim's  head. 

"Then  what  is  there  in  it?"  asked  La  Pechina. 

"All  sorts  of  things!  "  said  Catherine,  glancing  sideways 
to  see  whether  her  brother  was  coming.  "  Thing-um-bobs 
from  the  Indies,  to  begin  with,  cinnamon  and  herbs  that 
change  you  by  enchantment.  In  fact,  you  feel  as  if  you  have 
everything  you  want.  It  makes  you  happy  !  You  do  not 
care  a  straw  for  anything." 

"  I  should  be  afraid  to  drink  spiced  wine  while  I  was  dan- 
cing !  "  put  in  La  Pechina. 

"Afraid  of  what?"  asked  Catherine.  "There  is  not  the 
least  thing  to  be  afraid  of.  Just  remember  what  a  lot  of 


198  THE  PEASANTRY, 

people  there  are  about.  And  all  the  bourgeois  looking  on 
at  us !  Ah !  one  day  of  that  kind  will  help  you  to  bear  up 
against  lots  of  troubles.  See  it  and  die,  one  would  be  quite 
content." 

"  If  only  Monsieur  and  Madame  Michaud  would  come 

too "  began  La  Pechina,  her  eyes  on  fire  with  excitement 

and  desire. 

"  Why,  there  is  your  Grandfather  Niseron,  you  haven't 
given  him  up,  have  you?  Poor  dear  man,  he  would  feel 
flattered  to  see  you  queening  it !  Do  you  really  like  those 
arminacs  (nickname  for  Parisians),  Michaud  and  the  rest  of 
of  them,  better  than  your  grandfather  and  us  Burgundians  ? 
It  is  not  nice  to  forsake  your  own  kith  and  kin.  And  then, 
beside,  what  could  the  Michauds  say  if  your  grandfather  were 
to  take  you  to  the  fair  at  Soulanges  ?  Oh  !  if  you  only  knew 
what  it  is  to  reign  over  a  man,  to  have  him  wild  about  you, 
to  be  able  to  tell  him  to  '  Go  there ! '  as  I  tell  Godain,  and 
he  goes,  or  '  Do  this  ! '  and  he  does  it !  And  rigged  out  as 
you  are,  child,  you  see,  you  would  completely  turn  some 
gentleman's  head ;  Monsieur  Lupin's  son,  for  instance.  To 
think  that  Monsieur  Amaury  is  sweet  upon  Marie,  my  sister, 
because  she  has  fair  hair ;  and  he  is  afraid  of  me,  as  you  may 
say.  But  as  for  you,  now  that  those  people  at  the  lodge  have 
smartened  you  up,  you  look  like  an  empress." 

While  Catherine  cleverly  turned  the  girl's  thoughts  away 
from  Nicolas,  the  better  to  dispel  suspicion  in  that  simple 
mind,  she  cunningly  instilled  the  nectar  of  flattery.  Un- 
wittingly she  had  found  the  weak  spot  in  her  victim's  heart. 
La  Pechina,  though  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  poor  peasant 
girl,  was  an  appalling  instance  of  precocious  development, 
like  many  a  nature  destined  to  end  even  as  they  blossom,  pre- 
maturely. She  was  a  strange  freak,  produced  by  crossing  the 
Montenegrin  and  Burgundian  strains,  begotten  and  born 
amid  the  turmoil  of  war,  and  all  these  circumstances  had 
doubtless  gone  to  the  moulding  of  her.  Thin,  slender,  and 


THE   PEASANTRY.  199 

brown  as  a  tobacco-leaf,  she  possessed  incredible  physical 
strength ;  but  her  low  height  was  deceptive  to  the  eyes  of 
peasants  who  know  nothing  of  the  mysteries  of  the  nervous 
system.  Nerves  do  not  come  within  the  ken  of  rural 
pathology. 

Genevieve  at  thirteen  was  scarcely  as  tall  as  other  girls  of 
her  age,  but  she  had  come  to  her  full  height.  Did  she  owe 
to  her  extraction,  or  to  the  sun  of  Burgundy,  the  dusky 
but  glowing  topaz-tint  of  her  face?  the  glow  of  the  blood 
through  the  dusky  transparent  tissues,  a  color  that  adds  years 
to  a  girl's  apparent  age?  Medical  science  would  perhaps 
decline  to  decide.  The  premature  age  of  La  Pechina's 
features  was  atoned  for  by  the  brightness — the  splendid  blaze 
of  light — in  the  eyes  that  shone  like  two  stars.  Perhaps  it  is 
because  such  eyes  are  so  full  of  sunlight  that  they  are  always 
shaded  by  long  thick  lashes ;  hers  were  almost  exaggerated  in 
length. 

Thick  tresses  of  blue-black  hair,  fine  and  long  and  abun- 
dant, rose  above  a  forehead  carved  like  the  brows  of  an 
antique  Juno,  but  the  splendid  crown  of  hair,  the  great  dark 
eyes,  the  goddess'  brow,  eclipsed  the  lower  part  of  the  face. 
The  upper  part  of  the  nose  was  regular  in  shape  and  slightly 
aquiline,  but  below  it  terminated  in  blunted  nostrils,  with 
something  equine  about  them.  In  moments  of  vehement 
excitement  they  turn  up,  a  trick  of  facial  expression  that  gave 
her  a  look  of  fierce  frenzy.  Like  the  nose,  the  rest  of  the 
face  seemed  to  have  been  left  unfinished  ;  it  was  as  if  clay 
had  been  wanting  to  the  hand  of  the  Great  Sculptor.  The 
space  beneath  the  mouth  was  so  narrow  that  any  one  who 
should  take  La  P6china  by  the  chin  must  have  touched  her 
lips;  but  her  teeth  diverted  attention  from  this  defect.  You 
could  almost  have  credited  each  one  of  those  little,  glistening, 
enameled,  shapely-cut,  translucent  bones  with  intelligent  life, 
and  a  mouth  somewhat  too  wide  made  it  easy  to  see  them. 
This  last  defect  was  further  emphasized  by  the  sinuous  curving 


200  THE  PEASANTRY. 

lines  of  lips,  that  bore  a  resemblance  to  the  fantastic  branch- 
ings of  coral. 

The  shell-like  convolutions  of  her  ears  were  so  translucent 
that  they  turned  to  a  rose-red  in  the  light.  Sunburned  though 
she  was,  the  skin  revealed  the  marvelous  fineness  of  the  tissues 
beneath.  If  love  lies  in  the  sense  of  touch,  as  Buffon  avers, 
such  a  silken  skin  must  have  been  as  subtle  and  as  penetrating 
as  the  scent  of  daturas.  Her  chest,  indeed  her  whole  body, 
was  appallingly  thin,  but  the  little  hands  and  feet  were  be- 
witchingly  small,  a  sign  of  unusual  nervous  power  and  of  an 
organization  capable  of  endurance. 

A  fierce  pride  blended  these  diabolical  imperfections  and 
divine  beauties  into  harmony,  in  spite  of  discords ;  the  un- 
daunted spirit  housed  in  the  feeble  body  looked  forth  from 
her  eyes.  Once  having  seen  the  child,  it  was  impossible  to 
forget  her.  Nature  had  meant  to  fashion  a  woman,  but  the 
circumstances  of  conception  had  given  her  a  boy's  face  and 
figure.  At  sight  of  the  strange  girl,  a  poet  would  have  given 
her  Yemen  for  her  native  land  and  Arabian  afrides  and  genii 
for  her  kin.  Nor  was  La  Pechina's  outward  appearance  mis- 
leading. She  had  a  spirit  that  matched  her  eyes  of  fire,  the 
quick  wit  suggested  by  the  lips  set  with  the  brilliants  of  be- 
witching teeth ;  she  had  thoughts  that  fitted  her  queenly  brow, 
the  equine  fury  of  the  nostrils  that  seemed  ready  to  neigh  at 
any  moment.  Love,  as  it  springs  into  being  amid  burning 
sands  and  in  the  deserts,  shook  the  pulses  of  the  heart  of 
twenty  years  in  the  thirteen-year-old  Montenegrin  girl  ;  it 
was  with  her  as  with  her  snowy  mountain  ranges,  summer  had 
come  upon  her  before  the  spring  flowers  had  had  time  to 
bloom. 

By  this  time  observing  minds  will  understand  how  it  was 
that  La  Pechina,  breathing  out  passion  at  every  pore,  should 
stir  the  sluggish  fancies  of  depraved  natures.  At  table  your 
mouth  waters  at  the  sight  of  certain  fruits,  pitted,  contorted, 
covered  with  dark  specks  ;  the  gourmet  knows  that  under 


THE  PEASANTRY.  201 

such  a  rind  Nature  has  hidden  her  cunningest  savors  and  per- 
fume. Why,  when  every  one  else  in  the  valley  pitied  La 
Pechina  for  an  ill-grown  weakling,  should  a  clod-pate  like 
Nicholas  Tonsard  have  set  his  choice  on  a  creature  worthy  of 
a  poet?  Why  should  Rigou,  in  his  old  age,  desire  her  with 
the  heat  of  youth  ?  Which  of  these  two  was  young  or  old  ? 
Was  the  young  peasant  as  sated  as  the  old  money-lender  ? 
How  was  it  that  both  extremes  of  life  united  in  one  sinister 
caprice  ?  Is  exhausted  vigor  like  the  first  beginnings  of 
strength  ?  Men's  vices  are  unfathomable  depths  guarded  by 
sphinxes,  and  questions  to  which  there  are  no  answers  almost 
always  stand  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  devious  ways. 

It  may  now  be  imagined  how  it  was  that  the  exclamation 
Piccina!  broke  from  the  countess  when  she  first  saw  Gene- 
vieve  by  the  roadside  in  the  previous  year,  a  child  in  a  maze 
of  wonder  at  the  sight  of  the  carriage  and  a  lady  inside  it 
dressed  like  Mme.  de  Montcornet.  And  it  was  this  girl,  so 
nearly  one  of  Nature's  failures  in  the  making,  who  now  loved 
with  all  the  energy  of  her  Montenegrin  nature.  She  loved 
the  tall,  handsome,  noble-hearted  forester,  as  children  of  her 
age  can  love  when  they  love ;  that  is  to  say,  with  a  frenzy  of 
childish  desire,  with  all  the  force  of  their  youth,  with  the 
devotion  which  sows  the  seeds  of  divine  romance  in  a  virgin 
soil.  Catherine's  coarse  hand  had  smitten  the  most  respon- 
sive strings  of  a  harp  strained  to  breaking.  To  dance  under 
Michaud's  eyes  !  To  go  to  the  saloon  at  Soulanges  !  To 
engrave  herself  upon  the  memory  of  this  idolized  master  ! 
What  thoughts  were  these  to  drop  into  that  volcanic  brain  ? 
What  was  this  but  to  fling  live  coals  upon  straw  lying  out  in 
the  August  sun  ? 

"  No,  Catherine,"  said  La  Pechina.  "  No,  I  am  an  ugly, 
puny  thing.  I  shall  have  to  sit  in  a  corner  and  be  an  old 
maid  all  alone  in  the  world  ;  that  is  my  fate." 

"Men  like  peaked-looking  girls,"  Catherine  declared. 
"Look  here  at  me  !  "  she  went  on,  holding  out  both  arms. 


202  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  There  is  Godain,  a  regular  shrimp,  has  taken  a  fancy  to  me ; 
so  has  that  little  fellow  Charles  that  goes  about  with  the  count. 
But  young  Lupin  is  shy  of  me.  I  tell  you  again,  it  is  the  little 
men  that  fall  in  love  with  me  and  say,  '  What  a  fine  girl ! '  at 
Ville-aux-Fayes  or  Soulanges.  Now,  all  the  tall,  fine-looking 
men  will  fall  in  love  with  you." 

"Oh,  Catherine,  really?  is  that  true?"  cried  La  Pechina 
in  an  ecstasy. 

"  Why,  it  is  as  true  as  this,  that  Nicolas,  the  finest  fellow  in 
the  neighborhood,  is  over  head  and  ears  in  love  with  you. 
He  dreams  of  you,  and  gets  low  about  you,  and  all  the  girls 
in  the  place  are  in  love  with  him.  He  is  a  mettled  lad  I  If 
you  put  on  a  white  frock  and  yellow  ribbons,  you  will  be  the 
handsomest  girl  in  the  room  at  Socquard's,  at  the  feast  of  Our 
Lady,  when  all  the  grand  folk  of  Ville-aux-Fayes  are  there  ! 
Look  here,  will  you  come  ?  Wait  a  bit,  I  was  cutting  grass 
yonder  for  our  cows.  I  have  a  drop  of  spiced  wine  in  my 
gourd;  Socquard  gave  it  me  this  morning,"  she  went  on, 
seeing  in  La  Pechina's  eyes  the  excited  look  that  every 
woman  understands.  "  I  am  a  good-natured  one,  we  will  go 
shares  at  it.  You  will  fancy  that  some  one  is  in  love  with 
you." 

As  they  talked  Nicolas  came  stealing  toward  them,  picking 
out  patches  of  thick  grass  to  step  upon,  creeping  noiselessly 
till  he  reached  the  trunk  of  a  huge  oak-tree  near  the  place 
where  his  sister  had  deposited  La  Pechina.  Catherine's  eyes, 
always  looking  about  her,  lighted  at  last  on  Nicolas  as  she 
went  for  the  spiced  wine. 

"There!  you  take  the  first  pull,"  said  she,  passing  the 
liqueur  over  to  La  Pechina. 

"  It  burns!  "  exclaimed  Genevieve,  handing  back  the  gourd 
after  a  couple  of  sips. 

"There,  you  silly  !  "  retorted  Catherine,  as  she  emptied  the 
rustic  flask,  "that  is  the  way!  It  is  as  if  a  ray  of  sunlight 
shone  in  your  inside." 


THE  PEASANTRY.  203 

"And  here  am  I  that  ought  to  have  taken  the  milk  to  Mile. 
Gaillard  !  "  cried  La  Pechina.  "  Nicolas  scared  me " 

"So  you  don't  like  Nicolas?" 

"  No,  I  don't,"  answered  La  Pechina.  "  What  makes  him 
hunt  me  about  ?  There  are  plenty  of  creatures  that  would  be 
glad  of  him." 

"  But  suppose  that  he  likes  you  better  than  any  one  else  in 
the  valley,  child " 

"  I  am  sorry  for  him,"  said  La  Pechina. 

"  It  is  plain  that  you  do  not  know  him,"  returned  the  older 
girl. 

The  ominous  words  were  hardly  uttered  before  Catherine 
Tonsard  sprang  upon  La  Pechina,  caught  her  by  the  waist, 
flung  her  flat  upon  the  grass  and  held  her  down,  so  that  she 
had  no  power  to  extricate  herself  from  her  perilous  position. 
At  the  sight  of  her  loathed  persecutor,  Genevieve  shrieked 
with  all  her  might,  and  directed  a  kick  in  the  stomach  at 
Nicolas  which  sent  him  reeling  five  paces  back;  then,  like  an 
acrobat,  she  wriggled  round  so  deftly  that  she  defeated  Cath- 
erine's calculations  and  got  up  to  run  away.  But  Catherine, 
still  on  the  ground,  reached  out  an  arm  and  clutched  her  by 
the  foot,  and  La  Pechina  fell  heavily  headlong  forward.  This 
ugly  fall  put  a  stop  to  the  brave  girl's  incessant  cries.  Nicolas, 
who  had  recovered  himself  in  spite  of  the  violence  of f  he  blow, 
came  up  in  a  towering  rage  and  tried  to  seize  hfo  victim. 
The  child's  head  was  heavy  with  the  wine,  but  in  this  strait 
she  caught  Nicolas  by  the  throat  and  held  him  in  an  iron 

grip- 

"  She  is  choking  me  ! Catherine  !  help  !  "  cried  Nic- 
olas, with  difficulty  making  his  voice  audible. 

La  Pechina  shrieked  aloud.  Catherine  tried  to  stop  the 
sounds  by  putting  a  hand  over  her  mouth,  but  the  child  bit 
her  till  the  blood  came.  At  that  very  moment  Blondet  and 
the  countess  and  the  cure  appeared  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
wood. 


204  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"Here  come  the  gentry  from  the  Aigues,"  said  Catherine, 
helping  Genevieve  to  rise. 

"  Do  you  want  to  live?"  said  Nicolas  Tonsard  hoarsely. 

"  And  if  I  do? "  said  La  Pechina. 

"Tell  them  that  we  were  romping  and  I  will  forgive  you," 
said  Nicolas  with  a  scowl. 

"  Are  you  going  to  say  that,  you  cat?"  insisted  Catherine, 
with  a  glance  more  teriffic  than  Nicolas'  murderous  threat. 

"Yes,  if  you  will  let  me  alone,"  said  La  Pechina.  "Any- 
how I  shall  not  go  out  again  without  my  scissors." 

"You  hold  your  tongue  or  I  will  chuck  you  into  the 
Avonne,"  said  Catherine  savagely. 

"You  are  wretches!"  cried  the  cure.  "You  deserve  to 
be  arrested  and  sent  up  for  trial  for  this." 

"  Oh,  as  to  that,  what  do  some  of  you  do  in  your  drawing- 
rooms?"  asked  Nicolas,  staring  at  the  countess  and  Blondet, 
who  quailed.  "You  play  there,  don't  you?  All  right,  the 
fields  are  our  playground,  and  you  cannot  always  be  at  work ; 
we  were  playing.  You  ask  my  sister  and  La  Pechina." 

"  What  can  you  do  when  it  comes  to  blows  if  this  is  the 
way  you  play?"  exclaimed  Blondet. 

Nicolas  looked  at  Blondet  with  a  deadly  hate  in  his  eyes. 

"Speak  up!"  said  Catherine,  taking  La  Pechina  by  the 
fore-arm  and  gripping  it  till  she  left  a  blue  bracelet  of  bruises 
round  it.  "We  were  having  a  game,  weren't  we? " 

"  Yes,  my  lady,  we  were  having  a  game,"  said  La  Pechina. 
The  child's  whole  strength  was  exhausted  ;  she  stood  limp 
and  drooping  as  if  she  were  about  to  faint. 

"You  hear  that,  my  lady,"  said  Catherine  brazenly,  with  a 
glance  that  between  woman  and  woman  is  like  a  stab. 

She  took  her  brother's  arm  and  the  pair  walked  off  together. 
They  knew  quite  well  what  ideas  they  had  given  the  three 
personages  behind  them.  Twice  Nicolas  looked  round ; 
twice  he  encountered  Blondet's  eyes.  The  literary  man  was 
scanning  the  tall,  broad-shouldered  rascal.  Nicolas  stood 


THE   PEASANTRY.  205 

five  feet  eight  inches  high ;  he  had  crisp  black  hair,  a  high 
color,  his  face  was  good-tempered  enough,  but  there  were  sig- 
nificant lines  about  the  lips  and  mouth  that  suggested  the 
cruelty  peculiar  to  lust  and  idleness.  Catherine  swayed  her 
white-and-blue-striped  skirts  as  she  went  with  a  sort  of  vicious 
coquetry. 

"  Cain  and  his  wife,"  said  Blondet,  turning  to  the  cure. 

"You  do  not  know  how  well  your  words  have  hit  the 
mark,"  returned  the  Abbe  Brossette. 

"  Oh  !  Monsieur  le  Cure,  what  will  they  do  to  me?"  cried 
La  Pechina,  as  soon  as  the  brother  and  sister  were  out  of  ear- 
shot. 

The  countess'  face  was  as  white  as  her  handkerchief.  The 
whole  thing  had  been  a  great  shock  to  her,  so  great  that  she 
heard  neither  La  Pechina,  nor  the  cure,  nor  Blondet. 

"  This  would  drive  one  from  an  earthly  paradise,"  she  said 
at  last ;  "  but,  of  all  things,  let  us  save  this  little  one  from 
their  clutches." 

"You  were  right,"  Blondet  said  in  a  low  voice  meant  only 
for  the  countess.  "The  child  is  a  whole  romance — a  romance 
in  flesh  and  blood." 

The  Montenegrin  girl  had  reached  a  point  when  body  and 
soul  seem  to  smoke  with  the  unquenched  fires  of  wrath  which 
have  put  the  utmost  strain  on  every  faculty,  physical  and 
mental. 

There  is  an  inexpressible  and  supreme  human  splendor 
which  only  breaks  forth  under  the  pressure  of  some  high- 
wrought  mood  of  struggle  or  of  victory,  of  love  or  martyr- 
dom. She  had  left  home  that  morning  in  a  frock  of  a  ma- 
terial of  narrow  brown-and-yellow  stripes,  with  a  little  frill 
at  the  throat  that  she  had  risen  early  to  pleat  into  her  dress ; 
and  now  she  stood  as  yet  unconscious  of  the  disorder  of  her 
earth-stained  garments  or  her  torn  frill.  Her  hair  strayed 
down  over  her  face,  she  felt  for  her  comb;  but  with  that  first 
dawn  of  dismay  Michaud  appeared  upon  the  scene ;  he  also 


206  THE  PEASANTRY. 

had  heard  the  cries.  All  La  Pechina's  energy  returned  at 
once  at  the  sight  of  her  god. 

"  He  did  not  so  much  as  lay  a  finger  on  me,  Monsieur 
Michaud!" 

That  cry  and  its  accompanying  glance  and  gesture,  which 
spoke  more  eloquently  than  the  words,  told  Blondet  and  the 
cure  in  one  moment  more  than  Mme.  Michaud  had  told  the 
countess  of  the  strange  girl's  passion  for  the  head-forester, 
who  was  blind  to  it. 

"The  wretch!"  exclaimed  Michaud;  and,  acting  on  an 
impulse  of  impotent  wrath  which  takes  the  fool  and  the  wise 
alike  at  unawares,  he  shook  his  fist  in  the  direction  of  Nicolas, 
whose  tall  figure  darkened  the  wood-path  into  which  he  had 
plunged  with  his  sister. 

"Then  you  were  not  playing  after  all,"  commented  the 
Abbe  Brossette,  with  a  keen  glance  at  La  Pechina. 

"  Do  not  tease  her,"  said  the  countess.  "  Let  us  go  home 
at  once." 

La  Pechina,  spent  though  she  was,  drew  from  the  force  of 
her  passion  sufficient  strength  to  walk — under  the  eyes  of  her 
adored  master.  The  countess  followed  immediately  behind 
Michaud,  along  a  footpath  known  only  to  keepers  and  poachers, 
and  so  narrow  that  two  could  not  walk  abreast  in  it.  It  was  a 
short  cut  to  the  Avonne  gate. 

"Michaud,"  the  lady  began,  when  they  had  come  half-way 
through  the  wood,  "the  neighborhood  must  be  rid  somehow 
or  other  of  this  good-for-nothing  scamp.  This  child  is  per- 
haps in  danger  of  her  life." 

"To  begin,"  returned  Michaud,  "  Genevieve  shall  never 
leave  the  lodge.  My  wife  shall  take  Vatel's  nephew  into  the 
house;  he  keeps  the  walks  in  order  in  the  park.  We  will 
replace  him  by  a  young  fellow  who  comes  from  near  my  wife's 
home,  for  after  this  we  ought  to  have  no  one  about  the  Aigues 
whom  we  cannot  trust.  With  Gounod  in  the  house  and 
Cornevin,  Olympe's  old  foster-father,  the  cows  will  be  well 


THE  PEASANTRY.  207 

looked  after,  and  La  Pechina  shall  never  go  out  by  herself 
again." 

"I  shall  ask  the  count  to  make  good  the  extra  expense  to 
you,"  said  the  lady;  "but  this  will  not  rid  us  of  Nicolas. 
How  can  it  be  done  ?  " 

"Oh,  that  is  quite  simple;  there  is  a  way  ready  made. 
Nicolas  will  have  to  go  before  the  examining  committee 
directly.  Instead  of  interfering  to  get  him  off,  as  the  Ton- 
sards  expect  the  general  to  do,  he  has  only  to  give  the  au- 
thorities a  hint " 

"  I  will  go  myself  if  need  be  to  see  my  Cousin  Casteran  at 
the  prefecture,"  said  the  countess,  "but  meanwhile,  I  am 
afraid " 

These  few  words  were  exchanged  at  the  point  where  several 
paths  met  in  a  circle.  The  countess  climbed  the  bank  by  the 
ditch-side,  and,  in  spite  of  herself,  a  cry  broke  from  her. 
Michaud  went  to  her  assistance,  thinking  that  she  had  received 
a  scratch  from  a  bit  of  dead  thorn,  but  he  too  shuddered  at 
the  sight  that  met  his  eyes. 

Marie  and  Bonnebault,  sitting  on  the  bank-side,  were  ap- 
parently chatting  together  ;  but  evidently  the  pair  had  hidden 
themselves  for  purposes  of  eavesdropping.  They  had  heard 
people  come  up  in  the  forest,  had  recognized  the  voices  of 
the  gentry,  and  left  their  sentinel's  post. 

Bonnebault,  a  thin  lanky  youth,  had  served  six  years  in  a 
cavalry  regiment.  Some  few  months  ago  he  had  been  dis- 
charged for  good  from  the  army  for  bad  conduct ;  he  was 
enough  to  spoil  the  best  of  regiments;  and  since  then  he  had 
been  hanging  about  Conches.  With  a  pair  of  mustaches,  a 
tuft  of  beard  on  the  chin,  a  certain  presence  and  carriage  that 
a  soldier  learns  in  barracks  and  drill,  he  had  turned  the  heads 
of  all  the  peasant  girls  in  the  valley.  Bonnebault  wore  his 
hair,  soldier  fashion,  clipped  close  to  the  back  of  the  head, 
frizzed  about  the  face,  and  brushed  up  jauntily  behind  on  the 
temples.  He  tilted  his  foraging  cap  knowingly  over  one  ear. 


208  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Indeed,  compared  with  peasants  in  rags  and  tatters  like  Mouche 
and  Fourchon,  he  was  a  glorious  creature  in  his  linen  trousers, 
leather  boots,  and  short  jacket.  This  attire,  assumed  since 
his  discharge,  smacked  somewhat  of  half-pay  and  a  country- 
man's life ;  but  the  cock  of  the  valley  had  better  clothes  for 
high  days  and  holidays.  He  lived,  it  may  be  said  at  once, 
on  his  sweethearts,  and  found  his  means  barely  sufficient  for 
his  amusements,  potations,  and  various  methods  of  going  to 
the  devil,  a  necessary  consequence  of  hanging  about  the  Cafe 
of  Peace. 

There  was  something  indescribably  sinister  in  the  rascal's 
round,  featureless  countenance,  though  at  first  sight  he  looked 
not  unpleasing.  He  was  cross-eyed ;  that  is,  he  did  not  ex- 
actly squint,  but  his  eyes  sometimes  "  went  different  ways," 
to  borrow  a  phrase  from  the  studio,  and  this  optical  defect, 
slight  though  it  was,  gave  him  an  underhand  expression  which 
made  you  feel  uncomfortable;  and  the  more  so  because  a  twitch 
of  the  forehead  and  eyebrows  accompanied  these  movements 
of  the  eyes — a  revelation  of  a  certain  inherent  baseness  and  an 
innate  tendency  to  go  to  the  bad. 

Of  cowardice,  as  of  courage,  there  be  many  kinds.  Bonne- 
bault,  who  would  have  fought  on  the  field  with  the  bravest, 
was  pusillanimous  before  his  vices  and  unable  to  resist  his 
fancies.  He  was  as  lazy  as  a  lizard,  though  he  could  be 
active  enough  when  he  chose ;  he  had  no  sense  of  shame,  he 
was  proud  and  yet  base,  and  the  man  who  could  do  anything 
and  did  nothing,  the  "  breaker  of  heads  and  hearts,"  to  use  a 
soldier's  phrase,  found  his  sole  delight  in  mischief  and  worse. 
A  character  of  this  kind  is  as  dangerous  an  example  in  a  quiet 
country  place  as  in  a  regiment. 

Bonnebault's  aim,  like  Tonsard's  and  Fourchon's,  was  to 
live  in  comfort  and  to  do  nothing ;  and  to  that  end  he  had 
"laid  himself  out,"  as  Vermichel  and  Fourchon  would  say. 
By  exploiting  his  figure,  with  increasing  success,  and  his  skill 
at  billiards,  with  varying  fortune,  he  flattered  himself  that  in 


THE  PEASANTRY.  209 

his  quality  of  prop  and  pillar  of  the  Cafe  of  Peace  he  should 
one  day  marry  Mile.  Aglae  Socquard,  only  daughter  of  the 
proprietor  thereof.  Socquard's  cafe  (making  due  allowance 
for  relative  position)  was  to  Soulanges  much  what  Ranelagh  is 
to  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  To  adopt  the  career  of  a  bar-keeper, 
to  be  proprietor  of  a  dancing-saloon — 'twas  a  fine  prospect,  a 
very  marshal's  baton,  for  a  man  who  hated  work. 

Bonnebault's  habits,  life,  and  nature  were  written  in  such 
foul  characters  on  his  face  that  the  countess  started  at  the  sight 
of  him  and  his  companion  as  if  she  had  seen  a  couple  of  snakes. 
It  was  this  shock  that  had  made  her  cry  out. 

Marie  Tonsard  was  so  infatuated  with  Bonnebault  that  for 
him  she  would  have  stolen  outright.  That  mustache,  that 
lounging  military  swagger,  that  low  bully's  air,  went  to  her 
heart  as  the  manners,  bearing,  and  air  of  a  De  Marsay  fasci- 
nate Parisian  fair.  Every  social  sphere  has  its  bright  par- 
ticular stars.  Marie  was  uneasy,  she  dismissed  Amaury,  the 
rival  coxcomb  of  the  little  town.  She  meant  to  be  Mme. 
Bonnebault. 

"  Halloo  there  !  halloo!  are  you  coming?  "  shouted  Cath- 
erine and  Nicolas  in  the  distance;  they  had  caught  sight  of  the 
other  pair. 

The  shrill  cry  rang  through  the  woods  like  a  savage's  signal. 

Michaud  shuddered  at  the  sight  of  the  two  creatures  and 
bitterly  repented  his  hasty  speech.  If  Bonnebault  and  Marie 
had  overheard  the  conversation  nothing  but  mischief  would 
come  of  it.  Some  such  apparently  infinitely  trifling  matter 
was  enough  in  the  present  exasperated  condition  of  parties  to 
bring  about  a  decisive  result,  even  as  upon  some  battlefield 
victory  and  defeat  have  been  decided  by  the  course  of  some 
little  stream  which  balks  the  advance  of  the  battery,  though 
a  shepherd's  lad  can  cross  it  at  a  running  jump. 

Bonnebault  took  off  his  cap  gallantly  to  the  lady,  took 
Marie's  arm,  and  swaggered  off  in  triumph. 

"  That  fellow  is  the  Clef-des-Coturs  (Key  of  Hearts)  of  the 
14 


210  THE  PEASANTRY. 

valley,"  Michaud  whispered,  using  a  nickname  of  the  French 
camp  which  means  a  Don  Juan.  "He  is  a  very  dangerous 
character.  He  has  only  to  lose  a  score  of  francs  at  billiards 
and  he  would  be  ready  to  murder  Rigou.  He  is  as  ready  for 
a  crime  as  for  pleasure." 

"I  have  seen  more  than  enough  for  one  day,"  said  the 
countess,  taking  Emile's  arm.  "Let  us  turn  back." 

She  watched  La  Pechina  go  into  the  house,  and  made  Mme. 
Michaud  a  sad  farewell  sigh ;  Olympe's  dejection  had  infected 
the  countess. 

"  What  is  this,  madame  ?  "  said  the  Abbe  Brossette.  "  Do 
the  difficulties  of  doing  good  here  really  turn  you  away  from 
making  the  attempt?  For  five  years  I  have  slept  on  a 
mattress  and  lived  in  a  bare  unfurnished  parsonage-house, 
saying  mass  without  a  flock  to  listen  to  it,  preaching  to  an 
empty  church,  officiating  without  fees  or  supplementary 
stipend  ;  I  have  the  State  allowance  of  six  hundred  francs ;  I 
give  away  one-third  of  it,  and  have  asked  nothing  of  his 
lordship  the  bishop — and  after  all  I  do  not  despair.  If  you 
but  knew  what  it  is  like  in  the  winter  here  you  would  feel  all 
the  force  of  those  words.  I  have  nothing  to  warm  me  but  the 
thought  of  saving  this  valley  and  winning  it  back  to  God. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  ourselves  alone,  madame ;  the  future 
time  is  concerned.  If  we  cures  are  put  here  to  say  to  the 
poor,  '  Know  how  to  be  poor  ! '  that  is  to  say,  '  Bear  your  lot 
in  patience  and  work,'  it  is  no  less  our  duty  to  bid  the 
wealthy  '  Know  how  to  be  rich,'  which  means,  '  Be  intelli- 
gently beneficent,  fear  God,  be  worthy  of  the  post  He  has 
assigned  to  you  !  ' 

"  Well,  madame,  you  are  only  depositaries  of  wealth  and 
the  power  that  wealth  gives ;  if  you  fail  to  fulfill  your  trust 
you  will  not  transmit  that  which  you  received  to  your  children. 
Your  are  robbing  those  that  shall  come  after  you !  If  you 
follow  in  the  selfish  ways  of  the  cantatrice,  whose  supineness 
most  surely  caused  the  evils  which  have  startled  you  by  their 


THE  PEASANTRY,  211 

extent,  you  will  see  yet  again  the  scaffolds  on  which  your 
predecessors  died  for  the  sins  of  their  fathers.  To  do  good 
obscurely  in  some  out-of-the-way  nook,  just  as  this  Rigou,  for 

example,  is  doing  harm Ah  !  God  in  heaven  delights 

to  hear  the  prayer  that  takes  the  form  of  such  deeds  as  these ! 
If,  in  every  commune,  there  were  three  human  beings  deter- 
mined to  do  good,  this  fair  France  of  ours  would  be  saved 
from  the  depths  toward  which  we  are  hurrying,  dragged  down 
as  we  are  by  a  creed  of  indifference  to  all  that  does  not 
directly  concern  ourselves  !  First  of  all,  change  your  lives  ; 
change  them  and  you  will  change  your  laws." 

Although  the  countess  was  deeply  moved  by  this  outpouring 
of  truly  catholic  charity,  her  only  answer  was  the  rich  man's 
fatal  formula,  "We  shall  see,"  a  put-off  that  contains  suffi- 
cient promise  in  it  to  repel  any  immediate  call  upon  the 
purse,  while  it  leaves  the  speaker  free  in  future  to  fold  his 
arms  when  the  mischief  is  done  and  to  plead  that  now  it  is 
too  late. 

Upon  this  the  Abbe  Brossette  took  leave  of  Mme.  de  Mont- 
cornet,  and  went  by  the  nearest  way  to  the  Blangy  gate. 

"  Is  Belshazzar's  Feast  to  be  throughout  all  ages  the  symbol 
of  the  last  days  of  a  doomed  class,  oligarchy,  or  ruling 
power?"  he  asked  himself  when  he  had  made  ten  paces  on 
his  way.  "  O  God,  if  it  be  Thy  holy  will  to  let  loose  the 
poor  like  a  deluge  that  there  may  be  a  new  world,  then  I  can 
understand  that  Thou  wouldst  abandon  the  rich  man  to  his 
blindness." 

XII. 

SHOWS   HOW   THE  TAVERN   IS   THE   PEOPLE'S   PARLIAMENT. 

Meanwhile,  by  screaming  at  the  top  of  her  voice,  Granny 
Tonsard  had  brought  several  people  from  Blangy,  curious  to 
know  what  could  have  happened  at  the  Grand-I-Vert.  Blangy 
itself  was  about  as  near  to  the  tavern  as  the  Blangy  gate  of 


212  THE  PEASANTRY. 

the  park.  Among  those  attracted  thus,  who  should  be  there 
but  old  Niseron — La  Pechina's  grandfather,  who  had  just  rung 
the  second  Angelus,  and  was  on  his  way  back  to  train  the 
last  vine-stems  on  his  last  bit  of  ground. 

All  the  honesty  left  in  the  commune  had  taken  up  its  abode 
in  the  old  vine-dresser,  whose  back  was  bent  with  toil,  whose 
features  were  blanched  and  hair  whitened  with  age.  During 
the  Revolution  he  had  been  the  president  of  the  Ville-aux- 
Fayes  Jacobin  Club  and  a  sworn  member  of  the  local  Revo- 
lutionary Committee.  Jean-Francois  Niseron  was  composed 
of  the  stuff  of  which  apostles  are  made.  In  years  gone  by  he 
had  been  the  very  image  of  Saint  Peter,  the  saint  whose  por- 
trait never  varies  with  any  painter's  brush;  he  had  the  square 
forehead  of  the  man  of  the  people,  the  stiff  crisped  hair  of  the 
toiler,  the  proletarian's  muscles,  the  fisherman's  bronzed  face, 
the  powerful  nose,  the  half-satirical  mouth  that  laughs  at  ill- 
luck,  and  (a  final  characteristic)  the  shoulders  of  the  strong 
man  who  will  cut  his  faggots  in  the  neighboring  wood  and 
cook  his  dinner  while  doctrinaires  are  talking  about  it. 

This  was  Niseron  as  a  man  of  forty  at  the  time  when  the 
Revolution  broke  out,  a  man  as  hard  as  iron  and  as  honest  as 
the  day.  He  took  the  side  of  the  people,  he  put  his  faith  in 
the  Republic  with  the  first  mutterings  of  a  word  perhaps  even 
more  to  be  dreaded  than  the  idea  behind  it.  He  believed  in 
the  Republic  of  Jean-Jacques  Rousseau,  the  brotherhood  of 
man,  the  exchange  of  noble  sentiments,  the  public  recognition 
of  merit,  in  a  fair  field  and  no  favor,  in  a  great  many  things, 
in  fact,  which,  though  quite  practicable  in  a  district  no  bigger 
than  ancient  Sparta,  become  Utopian  visions  when  the  area 
in  question  is  expanded  into  an  empire.  He  subscribed  to 
his  theories  with  his  blood ;  his  only  son  went  to  the  frontier : 
he  did  more  ;  for  them  he  made  the  sacrifice  of  his  pecuniary 
interests,  that  final  immolation  of  self.  He  was  the  nephew 
and  sole  heir  of  the  old  cure  of  Blangy,  who  died  and  left  all 
his  money  to  pretty  Arsene,  his  servant-girl ;  and  though 


THE  PEASANTRY.  213 

Niseron,  as  a  tribune,  was  all-powerful  in  the  district  and 
might  have  helped  himself  to  his  heritage,  he  respected  the 
wishes  of  the  dead,  and  accepted  the  poverty  which  came 
upon  him  as  swiftly  as  the  decadence  on  his  Republic. 

Not  a  groat  nor  a  branch  of  a  tree  belonging  to  another 
passed  into  his  hands.  If  this  sublime  Republican  could  have 
founded  a  school  the  Republic  would  have  been  accepted. 
He  declined  to  buy  the  National  lands,  denying  the  Republic 
the  right  of  confiscation.  In  response  to  the  demands  of  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  he  was  determined  that  the  man- 
hood of  the  citizens  should  work  for  the  holy  fatherland  the 
miracles  that  political  jugglers  tried  to  effect  with  gold  coin. 
The  man  of  antiquity  publicly  upbraided  Gaubertin  senior 
with  his  treacherous  double-dealing,  with  winking  at  corrup- 
tion, with  picking  and  stealing.  He  soundly  rated  the  virtu- 
ous Mouchon,  that  representative  of  the  People,  whose  virtue 
mainly  consisted  in  his  incapacity,  as  was  the  case  with  plenty 
of  his  like  who,  strong  with  the  might  of  a  whole  nation,  with 
absolute  command  of  the  most  enormous  political  resources 
that  ever  nation  put  at  the  disposition  of  its  rulers,  attained 
fewer  great  achievements  with  the  strength  of  a  people,  than 
a  Richelieu  with  the  weakness  of  a  king.  For  these  reasons 
Citizen  Niseron  became  a  living  reproach  to  everybody  else, 
and  before  long  the  good  soul  was  overwhelmed  and  buried 
under  the  avalanche  of  oblivion  by  the  terrible  formula, 
"Nothing  pleases  him!"  a  catchword  in  favor  with  those 
who  have  grown  fat  on  sedition. 

This  "  peasant  of  the  Danube  "  returned  under  his  own 
roof  at  Blangy.  He  watched  his  illusions  vanish  one  by  one, 
saw  his  Republic  become  an  appendage  of  the  Emperor,  and 
sank  into  penury  under  the  eyes  of  Rigou,  who  deliberately 
ruined  him  with  hypocritical  regret.  Do  you  ask  why?  Jean- 
Francois  Niseron  would  not  take  a  penny  of  Rigou.  Reiter- 
ated refusals  had  taught  the  wrongful  inheritor  of  old  Niseron's 
goods  the  depths  of  the  scorn  with  which  the  rightful  heir 


214  THE  PEASANTRY. 

regarded  him.  And,  to  crown  all,  the  icy  contempt  had 
just  been  succeeded  by  the  fearful  threat  as  to  the  little 
granddaughter  when  the  Abbe  Brossette  mentioned  her  to  the 
countess. 

The  old  man  had  written  a  history  of  the  twelve  years 
of  the  Republic.  It  was  a  history  written  to  suit  his  own 
notions;  it  was  full  of  the  grandiose  traits  for  which  those 
heroic  times  will  be  remembered  for  ever.  The  good  man 
shut  his  eyes  to  all  the  scandals,  slaughter,  and  spoliation  ;  he 
always  dwelt  admiringly  on  the  self-sacrifice,  the  Vengeur 
(avengers),  the  "patriotic  gifts,"  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people 
on  the  frontiers ;  he  went  on  with  his  dream  the  better  to 
sleep. 

The  Revolution  made  many  poets  like  old  Niseron,  poets 
who  sang  their  songs  within  our  borders  or  in  our  armies,  in 
their  inmost  souls,  in  the  broad  light  of  day,  in  many  a  deed 
done  unseen  amid  the  storm-clouds  of  those  times ;  even  as  in 
the  days  of  the  Empire  the  wounded  left  forgotten  on  the 
field  would  cry  "  Long  live  the  Emperor !  "  before  they  died. 
This  sublimity  is  a  part  of  the  very  nature  of  France. 

The  Abbe  Brossette  respected  Niseron's  harmless  convic- 
tions. The  old  man  in  the  simplicity  of  his  heart  had  been 
won  by  a  chance  phrase:  "The  true  Republic,"  the  priest 
had  said,  "is  to  be  found  in  the  Gospel."  And  the  old  Re- 
publican carried  the  crucifix;  and  he  wore  the  vestment,  half- 
black,  half-red ;  and  he  was  decorous  and  serious  in  church, 
and  he  lived  by  the  triple  functions  which  he  fulfilled,  thanks 
to  the  Abbe  Brossette,  who  tried  to  give  the  good  man  not  a 
living,  but  enough  to  keep  him  from  starving. 

The  old  Aristides  of  Blangy  said  but  little,  like  all  noble 
dupes  who  wrap  themselves  round  in  the  mantle  of  resignation  ; 
but  he  never  failed  to  reprove  evil-doing,  and  the  peasants 
feared  him  as  thieves  fear  the  police.  At  the  Grand-I-Vert 
they  always  made  much  of  him,  but  he  did  not  go  there  half- 
a-dozen  times  in  a  year.  He  would  execrate  the  lack  of 


THE  PEASANTRY.  215 

charity  in  the  rich,  their  selfishness  revolted  him,  and  the 
peasants  always  took  this  fibre  in  his  nature  for  something 
that  he  had  in  common  with  them.  They  used  to  say,  "  Old 
Niseron  is  no  friend  to  the  rich  folk,  so  he  is  one  of  us ;  "  and 
a  noble  life  received  by  way  of  civic  crown  the  comment, 
"  Good  Daddy  Niseron  ;  there  is  not  a  better  man  !  "  He  was 
not  seldom  called  in  to  settle  disputes,  and  in  person  realized 
the  magic  words,  "  the  village  elder." 

In  spite  of  his  dire  poverty  he  was  exceedingly  tidy  in  per- 
son. He  always  wore  breeches,  thick  striped  stockings,  iron- 
bound  shoes,  the  coat  with  big  buttons  that  once  was  almost  a 
national  costume,  and  the  broad-brimmed  felt  hat — such  as 
old  peasants  wear  even  now.  On  working  days  he  appeared 
in  a  short  blue  jacket  so  threadbare  that  you  could  see  the 
manner  of  its  weaving.  There  was  a  noble  something  that 
cannot  be  described  in  his  face  and  bearing,  the  pride  of  a  man 
who  feels  that  he  is  free  and  worthy  of  his  freedom.  In  short, 
he  wore  clothes,  and  did  not  go  about  in  rags. 

"What  has  been  happening  out  of  the  common,  granny? 
I  heard  you  from  the  steeple  !  "  he  remarked. 

Then  the  old  man  heard  the  whole  story  of  Vatel's  frustra- 
ted attempt ;  every  one  spoke  at  once  after  the  fashion  of 
country  folk. 

"  If  you  did  not  cut  the  tree,  Vatel  was  in  the  wrong ;  but 
if  you  did cul  the  tree,  you  have  done  two  bad  things,"  pro- 
nounced Father  Niseron. 

"Just  take  a  drop  of  wine!"  put  in  Tonsard,  offering  a 
brimming  glass. 

"Shall  we  set  off?"  asked  Vermichel,  arising  and  looking 
at  Brunei. 

"Yes.  We  can  do  without  Daddy  Fourchon  ;  we  can  take 
the  deputy-mayor  from  Conches  with  us  instead,"  said  Brunei. 
"  Go  on  ahead,  I  have  a  paper  to  leave  at  the  castle ;  Daddy 
Rigou  has  gained  his  case,  and  I  must  give  notice  of  judg- 
ment." And  Brunei,  fortified  by  a  couple  of  nips  of  brandy, 


216  THE  PEASANTRY. 

remounted  his  gray  mare,  with  a  good-day  to  Father  Niseron, 
for  everybody  in  the  valley  looked  up  to  the  old  man. 

No  science,  nay,  no  practiced  statistician,  can  obtain  sta- 
tistics of  the  more  than  telegraphic  speed  with  which  news 
spread  through  country  districts,  no  account  of  the  ways  by 
which  it  crosses  waste  wildernesses  (the  standing  reproach  of 
French  administrators  and  French  capital).  It  is  a  bit  of 
well-known  contemporary  history  that  a  banker-prince  rode 
his  horses  to  death  between  the  field  of  Waterloo  and  Paris 
(for  he,  needless  to  say,  was  gaining  what  the  Emperor  had 
lost — to  wit,  a  kingdom),  yet  after  all  he  only  reached  the  cap- 
ital a  few  hours  ahead  of  the  disastrous  tidings.  So  within 
an  hour  of  the  time  when  Granny  Tonsard  fell  out  with 
Vatel  a  good  many  regular  customers  had  dropped  in  at  the 
Grand-I-Vert. 

The  first  to  come  was  Courtecuisse.  You  would  have  found 
it  hard  to  recognize  in  him  the  jolly  game-keeper,  the  fat 
Friar  John,  for  whom  it  may  be  remembered  his  wife  had 
boiled  the  coffee  and  milk  on  a  certain  morning  not  so  very 
long  back.  He  looked  years  older,  he  had  grown  thin  and 
wan,  a  dreadful  object-lesson  to  eyes  that  took  no  heed  of 
the  warning. 

"  He  had  a  mind  to  go  up  higher  than  the  ladder,"  so  it 
was  said  when  anybody  pitied  the  ex-keeper  and  blamed 
Rigou  ;  "he  wanted  to  turn  master." 

And,  indeed,  when  Courtecuisse  bought  the  Bdchelerie  he 
had  meant  to  "turn  master,"  and  had  boasted  as  much. 
His  wife  went  out  collecting  manure.  Before  daybreak  she 
and  Courtecuisse  were  at  work  digging  their  richly  manured 
garden  plot,  which  brought  in  several  successive  crops  in  the 
year,  and  yet  they  only  just  managed  to  pay  Rigou  the  interest 
due  on  the  balance  of  the  purchase-money.  Their  daughter 
in  service  at  Auxerre  sent  her  wages  to  her  father  and  mother; 
but  do  what  they  might,  and  in  spite  of  this  help,  the  balance 
was  now  due,  and  they  had  not  a  copper  sou. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  217 

Mme.  Courtecuisse  had  been  used  to  indulge  now  and  again 
in  a  bottle  of  spiced  wine  and  sugared  toast.  Now  she  drank 
nothing  but  water.  Courtecuisse  scarcely  trusted  himself  in- 
side the  Grand-I-Vert  lest  he  should  be  drawn  into  laying 
out  three  sous.  He  was  no  longer  a  person  to  be  courted. 
He  had  lost  his  free  nips  at  the  tavern,  and,  like  all  fools,  he 
whined  about  ingratitude.  In  fact,  he  was  going  the  way  of 
all  peasants  bitten  with  the  wish  to  own  land ;  he  was  ill- 
nourished,  and  found  the  work  heavier  and  heavier  as  the 
food  grew  less. 

"  Courtecuisse  has  put  too  much  in  bricks  and  mortar," 
said  the  envious.  "  He  should  have  waited  till  he  was  master 
before  he  began  to  plant  wall-fruit." 

The  simpleton  had  made  improvements,  brought  the  three 
acres  sold  by  Rigou  into  high  cultivation,  and  lived  in  fear  of 
being  turned  out  !  The  man  who  once  wore  leather  shoes 
and  sportsmen's  gaiters  now  went  about  in  sabots,  and  dressed 
no  better  than  old  Fourchon.  And  he  laid  the  blame  of  his 
hard  life  on  the  gentry  at  the  Aigues  !  Gnawing  care  had 
made  the  once  chubby,  jovial  little  man  so  dull  and  sullen 
that  he  looked  like  a  victim  of  slow  poison  or  some  incurable 
disease. 

"  What  can  be  the  matter  with  you,  Monsieur  Courtecuisse  ? 
Has  some  one  cut  your  tongue  out?"  asked  Tonsard,  when 
the  tale  of  the  recent  encounter  had  been  told  and  the  new- 
comer was  silent. 

"  That  would  be  a  pity,"  said  La  Tonsard  ;  "  he  has  no  call 
to  complain  of  the  midwife  who  cut  his  tongue-string ;  she 
made  a  good  job  of  it." 

"  Thinking  of  ways  to  pay  off  Monsieur  Rigou  freezes  your 
gab,"  complained  the  old  man,  grown  so  much  older  in  so 
short  a  time. 

"Pooh!"  said  Granny  Tonsard.  "You  have  a  good- 
looking  girl ;  she  will  be  seventeen  now ;  if  she  behaves  wisely, 
you  will  easily  settle  with  that  old  scribbler  yonder " 


218  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  We  sent  her  away  to  old  Madame  Mariotte  at  Auxerre  two 
years  ago  on  purpose  to  keep  her  out  of  harm's  way.  I  would 
sooner  die  than  let  her ' ' 

"What  a  fool!"  put  in  Tonsard.  "Look  at  my  girls: 
are  they  dead  ?  Any  one  who  should  say  that  they  were  not 
as  steady  as  stone  images  would  have  to  answer  for  it  to  my 
gun."  ' 

"  It  would  be  very  hard  to  have  to  go  out  of  the  place 
yonder?"  cried  Courtecuisse,  shaking  his  head.  "I  had 
sooner  some  one  paid  me  for  shooting  down  one  of  those 
arminacs  ! ' ' 

"  Oh,  a  girl  would  do  better  to  save  her  father  than  to  keep 
her  virtue  till  it  mildews,"  retorted  Tonsard.  He  felt  a 
little  sharp  tap  on  his  shoulder  as  he  spoke.  It  was  Father 
Niseron. 

"That  was  not  well  said,"  began  the  old  man.  "A  father 
is  the  guardian  of  the  honor  of  his  family.  It  is  just  such 
doings  that  draw  down  contempt  on  us,  and  they  say  that  the 
people  are  not  fit  to  have  liberty.  The  people  ought  to  set  the 
rich  an  example  of  honor  and  civic  virtues.  You  all  sell  your- 
selves to  Rigou  for  gold  ;  every  one  of  you  !  When  you  do 
not  give  him  your  daughters,  you  sell  your  own  manhood  ! 
That  is  bad." 

"Just  see  what  Short  Boots  has  come  to?"  said  Tonsard. 

"  Just  see  what  I  have  come  to  !  "  returned  old  Niseron.  "  I 
sleep  in  peace;  there  are  no  thorns  in  my  pillow." 

"  Let  him  talk,  Tonsard,"  said  La  Tonsard  in  her  husband's 
ear.  "You  know  very  well  that  that  is  his  crotchet,  poor 
dear !  " 

Bonnebault  and  Marie  and  Catherine  and  her  brother  all 
came  in  at  that  moment.  All  four  were  in  a  bad  humor  over 
the  failure  of  Nicolas'  scheme,  and  Michaud's  proposal  over- 
heard by  them  had  been  the  last  straw.  So  Nicolas,  once 
under  the  paternal  roof,  broke  into  a  frightful  outburst  against 
the  Aigues  and  the  whole  Michaud  establishment. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  219 

"  Here  is  the  harvest  beginning !  Well,  now,  I  am  not 
going  away  until  I  have  lighted  my  pipe  at  their  ricks,"  he 
shouted,  bringing  down  his  fist  with  a  bang  on  the  table  at 
which  he  sat. 

"There  is  no  need  to  yelp  like  that  before  anybody  and 
everybody,"  said  Godain,  pointing  to  old  Niseron. 

"  If  he  were  to  tell  tales  I  would  wring  his  neck  like  a 
chicken's,"  put  in  Catherine.  "  He  has  had  his  day :  a  med- 
dlesome old  fault-finder  !  Virtuous  they  call  him  !  It  is  his 
temperament,  that  is  all !  " 

It  was  a  strange  and  curious  sight  to  see  all  the  upturned 
faces  of  the  folk  gathered  together  in  that  den,  while  Granny 
Tonsard  stood  sentinel  at  the  door,  lest  any  one  should  over- 
hear the  talk  over  the  liquor. 

But  the  most  alarming  among  all  those  faces  belonged  to 
Godain,  Catherine's  wooer;  the  most  alarming  and  yet  the 
least  striking  face  in  the  tavern.  Godain  was  a  miser  who 
lacked  gold — a  miser,  that  is,  of  the  most  pitiless  kind ;  does 
not  the  hoardless  miser  take  precedence  of  the  miser  who 
broods  over  his  treasure?  The  latter  looks  within  himself, 
but  the  other  gazes  into  the  future  with  a  dreadful  fixity. 
This  Godain  was  a  type  which  seemed  to  represent  the  most 
numerous  class  among  the  peasantry.  Godain  was  short,  so 
short  that  he  had  been  exempted  from  military  service.  He 
was  naturally  thin,  and  toil  and  the  dull  frugality  which  saps 
the  life  of  such  insatiable  workers  as  Courtecuisse  had  still  fur- 
ther dried  him  up.  His  little  meagre  face  was  lighted  by  two 
yellow  eyes,  streaked  with  green  threads  and  speckled  with 
brown.  The  greed  of  gain,  of  gain  at  any  price,  which  shone 
in  them,  was  steeped  in  a  cold-blooded  sensuality;  desires 
once  hot  and  vehement  had  cooled  and  hardened  like  lava. 
The  skin  was  strained  tightly  over  the  brown,  mummy-like 
temples,  the  hairs  of  a  scanty  beard  grew  here  and  there  among 
the  wrinkles  like  wheat-stalks  among  the  furrows.  Nothing 
wrung  sweat  from  Godain;  he  reabsorbed  his  substance. 


220  THE  PEASANTRY. 

The  sinewy,  indefatigable  hands  like  hairy  claws  might  have 
been  made  of  old  seasoned  wood.  He  was  barely  seven-and- 
twenty,  yet  there  were  white  threads  already  among  the  rusty 
black  hair. 

As  to  dress,  he  wore  a  blouse,  which  gave  glimpses  through 
the  fastening  of  a  coarse  linen  shirt,  which  to  all  appearance 
he  only  changed  once  a  month,  and  washed  himself  in  the 
Thune.  His  sabots  were  mended  with  scraps  of  old  iron. 
It  was  impossible  to  pronounce  on  the  original  material  of 
his  trousers,  for  the  darns  and  patches  which  covered  it  were 
infinite.  Finally,  he  wore  a  shocking  cap,  evidently  picked 
up  on  the  doorstep  of  some  tradesman's  house  in  Ville-aux- 
Fayes. 

Godain  was  clear-sighted  enough  to  see  the  value  of  the 
elements  of  latent  fortune  in  Catherine.  He  meant  to  suc- 
ceed Tonsard  at  the  Grand-I-Vert,  and  with  that  end  in  view 
he  put  forth  all  his  cunning,  all  his  power,  to  capture  her. 
He  promised  her  that  she  should  be  rich,  he  promised  that 
she  should  have  all  the  license  which  her  mother  had  taken  ; 
before  he  had  finished  he  had  promised  his  future  father-in- 
law  a  heavy  rent  for  his  tavern,  five  hundred  francs  a  year 
until  the  place  was  paid  for ;  Godain  had  had  an  interview 
with  Brunei,  and  on  the  heads  of  that  interview  he  hoped  to 
pay  in  stamped  paper.  As  a  journeyman  agricultural-imple- 
ment maker,  this  gnome  would  work  for  the  ploughwright 
when  work  was  plentiful ;  but  he  took  the  highly  paid  over- 
time jobs.  He  had  invested  some  eighteen  hundred  francs 
with  Gaubertin,  but  not  a  soul  knew  of  the  money,  and  he 
lived  like  a  miserably  poor  man,  lodging  in  a  garret  in  his 
master's  house,  and  gleaning  at  harvest-time,  but  he  carried 
Gaubertin's  receipt  about  him,  sewn  into  the  band  of  his  Sun- 
day trousers,  and  saw  it  renewed  each  year ;  each  year  the 
amount  was  a  little  larger,  swelled  by  his  savings  and  the 
interest. 

"Eh!  what's  that  to  me?"  shouted  Nicolas,  in  reply  to 


THE  PEASANTRY.  221 

Godain's  prudent  observation.  "  If  I  am  to  go  for  a  soldier, 
I  would  sooner  that  the  sawdust  drank  my  blood  at  once  than 
give  it  drop  by  drop.  And  I  will  rid  the  neighborhood  of  one 
of  these  arminacs  which  the  devil  has  let  loose  upon  us."  And 
with  that  he  told  the  tale  of  the  so-called  plot  which  Michaud 
had  woven  against  him. 

"Where  would  you  have  France  look  for  her  soldiers?" 
the  old  man  asked  gravely.  During  the  silence  that  followed 
on  Nicolas'  hideous  threat  he  had  risen  and  faced  the  young 
man. 

"A  fellow  serves  his  time  in  the  army  and  comes  back 
again,"  said  Bonnebault,  curling  his  mustache. 

Old  Niseron  saw  that  all  the  black  sheep  of  the  district  had 
come  together ;  he  shook  his  head  and  went  out,  leaving  a 
demi-sou  with  Mme.  Tonsard  to  pay  for  his  glass  of  wine. 
There  was  a  general  stir  of  satisfaction  among  those  who  sat 
drinking  as  soon  as  the  good  man  had  set  foot  on  the  steps. 
It  would  have  been  plain  to  any  onlooker  that  they  all  felt 
constraint  in  the  presence  of  this  embodiment  of  their  con- 
science. 

"  Well,  now,  what  have  you  to  say  to  all  this,  eh  !  Short 
Boots?"  asked  Vaudoyer,  who  suddenly  appeared  and  heard 
the  tale  of  Vatel's  exploit  from  Tonsard. 

Courtecuisse  (short  shanks)  whose  name  was  nearly  always 
transformed  in  this  way  into  "short  boots,"  clicked  his 
tongue  against  the  roof  of  his  mouth,  and  set  down  his  glass 
on  the  table. 

"  Vatel  is  surely  in  the  wrong,"  he  answered.  "  In  the  old 
mother's  place,  I  should  bruise  my  ribs  and  take  to  my  bed, 
I  would  say  I  was  ill,  and  I  would  summon  the  Upholsterer 
and  his  keeper  for  sixty  francs  of  damages.  Monsieur  Sarcus 
would  give  them  to  you." 

"  Anyhow,  the  Upholsterer  would  give  the  money  to  avoid 
the  fuss  that  might  be  made  about  it,"  said  Godain. 

Vaudoyer,  ex-policeman,  five  feet  six  inches  in  height,  with 


222  THE  PEASANTRY. 

a  face  pitted  by  the  smallpox  and  hollowed  out  after  the 
nut-cracker  pattern,  held  his  peace  and  looked  dubious  at 
this. 

"Well,  what  now?  "  asked  Tonsard,  whose  mouth  watered 
for  those  sixty  francs.  "  What  is  ruffling  you  now,  great 
noodle  ?  Sixty  francs  to  my  mother  would  put  me  in  the  way 
of  making  something  out  of  it !  We  will  raise  a  racket  for 
three  hundred  francs,  and  Monsieur  Gourdon  might  as  well 
go  up  to  the  Aigues  and  tell  them  that  mother's  hip  has  been 
put  out." 

"And  they  would  put  it  out  for  her,"  his  wife  went  on; 
"these  things  are  done  in  Paris." 

"  That  would  cost  entirely  too  much,"  objected  the  prudent 
Godain. 

"  I  have  heard  too  much  talk  about  the  lawyers  to  feel  sure 
that  things  will  go  as  you  wish,"  Vaudoyer  said  at  last;  he 
had  often  been  present  in  court,  and  had  assisted  Ex-sergeant 
Soudry.  "At  Soulanges  it  would  be  all  right  even  now; 
Monsieur  Soudry  represents  the  Government,  and  there  is  no 
love  lost  between  him  and  the  Upholsterer.  But  if  you  attack 
Vatel,  they  will  be  sharp  enough  to  defend  the  case ;  and  they 
will  say,  '  The  woman  was  in  the  wrong ;  she  had  a  sapling 
in  her  bundle,  or  she  would  have  let  the  forester  look  into 
her  faggots  on  the  road  ;  she  would  not  have  run  away  ;  and 
if  anything  happened  to  her,  she  has  only  her  own  misdoings 
to  blame  for  it.'  No,  it  is  not  a  case  to  be  sure  of." 

"  Did  the  master  defend  the  case  when  I  summoned  him  ?  " 
said  Courtecuisse.  "  Not  he.  He  paid  me." 

"I  will  go  to  Soulanges  if  you  like,"  said  Bonn6bault, 
"and  ask  Monsieur  Gourdon,  the  registrar,  what  he  thinks, 
and  I  will  let  you  know  this  evening  if  there  is  anything  in 
it." 

"  You  only  want  an  excuse  for  going  to  see  that  great  goose, 
Socquard's  girl,"  said  Marie  Tonsard,  slapping  Bonnebault 
on  the  shoulder  as  if  she  meant  to  sound  his  lungs. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  223 

Just  at  that  moment  came  a  fragment  of  an  old  Bur- 
gundian  Christmas  carol : 

"A  brave  deed  once  He  did,  I  wot, 

When  as  our  Lord  did  dine, 
The  water  in  the  waterpot 
He  turned  to  Malmsey  wine." 

Everybody  recognized  Daddy  Fourchon's  voice,  raised  in  a 
ditty  which  must  have  been  peculiarly  pleasing  to  the  old 
man.  Mouche  piped  an  accompaniment  in  childish  treble. 

"  Oh,  they  have  had  a  blow  out !  "  Granny  Tonsard  called 
out  to  her  daughter ;  "  your  father  is  as  red  as  a  gridiron,  and 
the  child  is  dyed  the  color  of  a  vine-stem." 

"  Hail !  "  cried  the  old  man,  "  you  rascals  are  here  in  full 
force!  Hail!"  he  added,  turning  suddenly  on  his.  grand- 
daughter, who  had  her  arms  about  Bonnebault.  "  Hail, 
Mary !  full  of  vices,  Satan  be  with  thee,  cursed  be  thou 
above  all  women,  and  the  rest  of  it.  Hail,  fellows !  You 
are  caught  now  !  You  may  say  good-by  to  your  sheaves  ! 
Here  is  news  for  you  !  I  told  you  so,  I  told  you  that  the 
master  yonder  would  be  one  too  many  for  you  !  Well,  then, 
he  will  have  the  law  of  you  and  make  you  smart  for  it ! 
Ah !  see  what  comes  of  measuring  yourselves  with  the 
bourgeois !  The  bourgeois  have  made  so  many  laws  that 
they  have  a  law  for  every  little  thing " 

Here  an  alarming  hiccough  suddenly  gave  a  new  direction 
to  the  venerable  orator's  ideas. 

"If  Vermichel  were  here,  I  would  blow  down  his  throat ; 
he  should  know  what  Alicante  means  !  Ah  !  that  is  a  wine  ! 
If  I  were  not  a  Burgundian,  I  would  be  a  Spaniard  !  A  wine 
of  God  !  The  pope  says  mass  with  it,  I  know !  What  a 
wine  !  I  am  young  again  !  I  say,  Short  Boots,  if  your  wife 
were  here — I  think  she  would  be  young  too  !  Spanish  wine 
beats  spiced  wine  ;  no  question  about  it  !  There  ought  to  be 
another  Revolution,  only  to  clear  out  the  cellars " 


224  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  But  what  is  the  news,  dad  ?  "  asked  Tonsard. 

"  There  will  be  no  harvest  for  the  like  of  you.  The  Up- 
holsterer will  put  a  stop  to  the  gleaning  !  " 

"Stop  the  gleaning!"  Every  voice  in  the  tavern  went 
up  as  one  voice,  dominated  by  the  shrill  notes  of  four  women. 

"Yes,"  piped  Mouche  ;  "and  he  will  issue  a  proclamation 
by  Groison,  and  have  notices  stuck  up  all  over  the  canton  ; 
and  no  one  is  to  glean  except  those  who  have  paupers'  certifi- 
cates." 

"And,  get  hold  of  the  meaning  of  this"  said  Fourchon, 
"  other  communes  will  not  be  allowed  to  sneak  in." 

"What's  up?"  said  Bonndbault.  "Neither  my  grand- 
mother nor  I,  nor  your  mother,  Godain,  are  to  be  allowed  to 
glean  here  ?  Pretty  tricks  these  of  the  authorities  !  Plague 
take  them  !  Why  this  general,  your  mayor,  is  a  perfect  hell- 
broke-loose ' ' 

"Are  you  going  to  glean  all  the  same,  Godain?"  asked 
Tonsard,  turning  to  the  ploughwright's  assistant,  who  was 
talking  aside  with  Catherine. 

"//  "  asked  Godain.  "  I  have  nothing ;  so  I  am  a  pauper, 
and  I  shall  ask  for  a  certificate." 

"  Just  tell  me  what  they  gave  daddy  for  his  otter,  honey?" 
said  the  comely  mistress  of  the  house.  Mouche,  sitting  on 
his  aunt's  knee,  was  quite  overcome  by  the  effort  to  digest  his 
late  meal ;  his  eyes  were  heavy  with  the  two  bottles  of  wine 
consumed  therewith,  but  he  laid  his  head  on  his  aunt's  neck, 
and  murmured  cunningly — 

"  I  do  not  know ;  but  he  has  gold  !  Keep  me  like  a  fight- 
ing-cock for  a  month,  and  I  might  find  out  for  you  where  he 
hides  his  money,  for  he  has  a  hoard  somewhere." 

"  Father  has  gold  !  "  said  La  Tonsard  in  low  tones,  meant 
only  for  her  husband,  whose  voice  rose  above  the  storm  of 
heated  discussion  in  which  the  whole  tavern  joined. 

"  Hush  !  "  cried  the  old  sentinel.     "  Here's  Groison  !  " 

Deep  silence  prevailed  in  the  tavern.    When  Groison  might 


THE  PEASANTRY.  225 

be  supposed  to  be  out  of  earshot,  Granny  Tonsard  gave  the 
signal,  and  again  the  discussion  broke  out :  Would  it  be 
possible  to  glean  as  heretofore  without  having  a  pauper's  cer- 
tificate? 

"  You  will  be  made  to  obey,  that  is  certain,"  said  old  Four- 
chon,  "  for  the  Upholsterer  has  gone  to  see  the  prefect  and 
ask  him  to  call  the  soldiers  out  to  keep  order.  They  will 
shoot  you  down  like  dogs — which  we  are  !  "  wailed  the  old 
man,  struggling  with  the  torpid  influence  which  the  Alicante 
exerted  on  his  tongue. 

This  second  announcement  made  by  Fourchon,  preposter- 
ous though  it  was,  produced  an  effect.  The  audience  grew 
thoughtful ;  they  quite  believed  that  the  Government  was  capa- 
ble of  massacring  them  without  mercy.  Bonnebault  spoke — 

"  There  was  this  sort  of  trouble  round  about  Toulouse  when 
I  was  stationed  there,"  said  he.  "  We  marched  out,  the  peas- 
ants were  cut  down  and  arrested.  It  was  a  joke  to  see  them 
trying  to  make  a  stand  against  regular  troops.  Ten  of  them 
were  sent  off  to  the  hulks  afterward  and  eleven  more  went  to 
jail,  and  it  all  came  to  nothing,  aye  !  A  soldier  is  a  soldier, 
and  has  a  right  to  cut  you  civilians  down,  gee  whoa  ! " 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you  all,"  asked  Tonsard  ;  "you 
are  as  scared  as  wild  goats  ?  Perhaps  they  will  catch  my 
mother  or  my  girls  with  something,  will  they?  Some  one  is 
going  to  be  locked  up,  eh  ?  Well,  then,  they  will  go  to  jail. 
The  Upholsterer  will  not  put  the  whole  neighborhood  in  jail. 
And  if  he  does,  the  King  will  feed  them  better  than  they  feed 
themselves;  and  they  warm  the  cells  in  winter." 

"You  are  simpletons!"  bellowed  old  Fourchon.  "It  is 
better  to  lie  low,  it  is,  than  to  fly  in  the  man's  face.  If  you 
do,  you  will  be  paid  out  for  it.  If  you  like  the  hulks — that 
is  another  thing !  The  work  is  not  so  hard  there  as  it  is  in 
the  fields,  it  is  true,  but  you  have  not  your  liberty." 

"  Perhaps,  after  all,"  began  Vaudoyer,  who  was  one  of  the 
boldest  in  counsel,  "  it  would  be  better  that  one  of  us  should 
15 


226  THE  PEASANTRY. 

risk  his  skin  to  rid  the  country  of  the  Beast  of  Gevaudan, 
that  has  his  lair  by  the  Avonne  gate " 

"  Settle  Michaud  !  "  said  Nicolas.    "  That  is  what  I  think." 

"Things  are  not  ripe  yet,"  said  Fourchon,  "we  should 
lose  too  much,  children.  What  we  ought  to  do  is  to  make  a 
poor  mouth,  and  cry  out  that  we  are  starving ;  the  master  and 
his  wife  up  at  the  Aigues  will  be  for  helping  us,  and  you  will 
make  more  that  way  than  by  the  gleaning." 

"  You  are  a  chuckle-headed  lot,"  shouted  Tonsard.  "  Sup- 
pose that  there  is  a  racket  with  the  police  and  the  soldiers, 
they  will  not  clap  a  whole  countryside  in  irons ;  and  there  are 
the  old  lords  and  the  folk  at  Ville-aux-Fayes,  they  are  well 
disposed  to  back  us  up." 

"That  is  true,"  said  Courtecuisse.  "Nobody  complains 
except  the  Upholsterer.  Messrs,  de  Soulanges  and  de  Ron- 
querolles  and  the  rest  are  content !  When  one  thinks  that  if 
that  cuirassier  had  been  man  enough  to  be  killed  with  the  rest 
of  them,  I  should  be  snug  at  my  Avonne  gate  at  this  day,  and 
that  he  has  turned  me  topsy-turvy  till  I  don't  know  whether 
I  am  on  my  head  or  my  heels " 

"  They  will  not  call  the  soldiers  out  for  a  beggarly  bour- 
geois who  is  at  loggerheads  with  the  whole  neighborhood 
round,"  said  Godain.  "  It  is  his  own  fault.  He  must  needs 
upset  everything  and  everybody  here;  Government  will  tell 
him  to  go  and  hang  himself." 

"That  is  just  what  Government  will  say;  Government 
can't  help  itself — poor  Government!  "  said  Fourchon,  smit- 
ten with  a  sudden  tenderness  for  the  Government.  "I  am 
sorry  for  Government ;  'tis  a  good  Government.  It  is  hard 
up  and  has  not  a  sou,  like  us — which  is  a  stupid  thing  for  a 
Government  when  it  coins  the  money  itself.  Ah  !  if  I  were 
Government " 

"But  they  told  me  over  at  Ville-aux-Fayes  that  de  Ron- 
querolles  had  said  something  in  the  Assembly  about  our 
rights,"  cried  Courtecuisse. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  227 

"Yes,  I  saw  that  in  Mister  Rigou's  paper,"  said  Vaudoyer, 
who  could  read  and  write,  in  his  quality  of  ex-policeman. 

In  spite  of  his  maudlin  tenderness,  old  Fourchon  had  been 
following  the  discussion,  as  well  as  the  by-play  which  made  it 
interesting,  with  close  and  intelligent  attention.  Suddenly 
he  contrived  to  get  on  his  feet  and  take  up  his  position  in  the 
midst  of  the  tavern. 

"Listen  to  the  old  one,  he  is  tipsy,"  said  Tonsard;  "he 
has  twice  as  much  mischief  in  him,  his  own  and  the  wine " 

"Spanish  wine!  that  makes  three!  "  broke  in  Fourchon, 
laughing  like  a  satyr.  "  Children,  you  must  not  take  the  bull 
by  the  horns,  you  are  not  strong  enough ;  take  him  in  flank  ! 
Sham  dead,  lie  like  sleeping  dogs  !  The  little  woman  has  had 
a  good  frightening  by  now ;  things  will  not  go  on  like  this 
much  longer,  you  will  see.  Her  will  leave  the  place,  and  if 
her  goes  the  Upholsterer  will  go  too,  for  he  dotes  upon  her. 
That  is  the  way  to  do  it.  But  to  hurry  them  away,  I  advise 
you  to  take  their  councilor  from  them,  their  stronghold,  our 
spy,  our  ape." 

"Who  is  that?" 

"  Eh  !  why,  'tis  the  cursed  cure  !  "  said  Tonsard,  "  he  that 
rakes  up  sins  and  would  like  to  feed  us  on  holy  wafers." 

"Right  you  are!"  cried  Vaudoyer,  "we  did  very  well 
without  the  cure.  Something  ought  to  be  done  to  rid  us  of 
the  wafer-eater.  He  is  the  common  enemy." 

"  The  whipper-snapper,"  said  Fourchon  (this  was  a  nick- 
name given  to  the  cure  on  account  of  his  shabby  appearance), 
"may  fall  into  the  hands  of  some  sly  hussy,  for  he  keeps 
every  fast  day.  Then  if  he  were  caught  on  the  spree  there 
would  be  a  fine  hubbub,  and  his  bishop  would  have  to  send 
him  somewhere  else.  Old  Rigou,  good  soul,  would  be  mightily 
pleased.  If  Courtecuisse's  girl  would  leave  her  place  at 
Auxerre,  she  is  so  pretty  that  if  she  turned  pious  she  would 
save  the  country.  Ta,  ran,  tan  ti  !  " 

"And  why  should  it  not  be  you?1'  whispered   Godain  to 


228  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Catherine.  "There  would  be  a  basketful  of  crowns  to  be 
made  out  of  it  for  hush-money,  and  you  would  be  mistress 
here  at  once." 

"Are  we  going  to  glean  or  are  we  not  ?  "  cried  Bonnebault. 
"  Much  I  care  for  your  abbe.  I  am  from  Conches,  and  we 
have  no  parson  there  to  harrow  our  consciences  with  his 
gab." 

"  Wait  a  bit,"  opined  Vaudoyer.  "  Some  one  ought  to  go 
to  old  Rigou  (he  knows  the  law)  and  ask  him  if  the  Uphol- 
sterer can  stop  our  gleaning.  He  will  tell  us  if  we  are  in  the 
right.  If  the  Upholsterer  is  within  the  law,  then  we  will  see 
about  taking  him  in  flank,  as  the  old  one  says." 

"  There  will  be  blood  shed,"  said  Nicolas,  rising  to  his  feet 
(he  had  finished  off  the  bottle  of  wine  which  Catherine  had 
set  before  him  to  keep  him  quiet).  "If  you  will  listen  to  me, 
some  one  will  bring  down  Michaud ;  but  you  are  a  sappy  lot 
of  dawdlers!" 

"  Not  me  !  "  said  Bonnebault.  "  If  you  are  the  friends  to 
keep  mum  about  it,  I  will  undertake  to  bring  down  the  Up- 
holsterer myself!  What  fun  to  lodge  a  bullet  in  his  bread- 
basket !  I  should  have  my  revenge  on  all  my  stuck-up 
officers." 

"  There,  there  !  "  cried  Jean-Louis  Tonsard,  who  had  come 
in  since  old  Fourchon  entered.  Some  said  that  Gaubertin 
was  Jean-Louis'  father.  The  young  fellow  had  succeeded  to 
Tonsard's  occupation  of  clipping  hedges  and  arbors  and  the 
like  offices.  He  went  to  well-to-do  houses,  chatted  with  mas- 
ters and  servants,  and  by  dint  of  picking  up  ideas  in  this  way 
he  became  the  man  of  resource  and  most  knowing  member  of 
the  family.  For  the  last  few  months  Jean-Louis  had  paid 
court  to  Rigou's  pretty  servant-girl,  and  in  this  matter,  as  will 
very  shortly  be  seen,  he  justified  the  high  opinion  entertained 
of  his  shrewdness. 

"Well,  prophet,  what  is  the  matter?"  asked  his  parent. 

"You  are  playing  the  bourgeois'  game,  I  tell  you,"  said 


THE  PEASANTRY.  229 

Jean-Louis.  "  Frighten  the  gentry  at  the  Aigues  so  as  to 
maintain  your  rights,  well  and  good ;  but  as  for  driving  them 
out  of  the  place  and  having  the  Aigues  put  up  for  auction,  that 
is  what  the  bourgeois  want  in  the  valley,  but  it  is  not  to 
our  interest  to  do  it.  If  you  help  to  divide  up  the  big  estates, 
where  are  the  National  lands  to  come  from  in  the  revolution 
that's  coming?  You  will  get  the  land  for  nothing  then,  just 
as  old  Rigou  did ;  but  once  let  the  bourgeois  chew  up  the 
land,  they  will  spit  it  out  in  much  smaller  and  dearer  bits. 
You  will  work  for  them,  like  all  the  others  who  are  working 
for  Rigou.  Look  at  Courtecuisse  !  " 

The  policy  set  forth  in  this  harangue  was  too  profound  for 
wine-flustered  wits.  Every  one  present,  Courtecuisse  excepted, 
was  putting  money  by.  Every  one  meant  to  have  his  share 
of  the  loaf  of  the  Aigues.  So  they  allowed  Jean-Louis  to  talk 
on,  and  kept  up  private  conversations  among  themselves,  after 
the  manner  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies. 

"  Well,  now,  you  hear  that !  You  will  be  Rigou's  cat's- 
paws,"  cried  Fourchon,  the  only  one  who  caught  the  drift  of 
the  speech  made  by  his  grandson. 

Just  at  that  moment  Langlume,  the  miller  from  the  Aigues, 
happened  to  pass.  La  Tonsard  hailed  him. 

"So  it  is  true,  is  it,  that  they  are  going  to  stop  the  glean- 
ing, Mister  Deputy-mayor?" 

Langlum6,  a  jovial-looking  little  man  with  a  floury  coun- 
tenance and  whitish-gray  suit  of  clothes,  came  up  the  steps, 
and  immediately  every  peasant  looked  serious. 

"  Lord,  boys,  yes  and  no.  The  really  poor  will  glean;  but  the 
steps  that  will  be  taken  will  be  greatly  to  your  interests " 

"  How  so  ?  "  inquired  Godain. 

"  Why,  if  they  prevent  all  the  poor  folk  from  pouring  in  on 
us,"  said  the  miller,  with  a  shrewd  Norman's  wink,  "that 
will  not  hinder  the  rest  of  you  from  going  to  glean  elsewhere ; 
unless  all  the  mayors  copy  the  mayor  of  Blangy." 

"  So,  it  is  true?  "  asked  Tonsard,  with  menace  in  his  looks- 


230  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"For  my  own  part,"  said  Bonnebault,  as  he  tilted  his  for- 
aging cap  over  one  ear,  and  twirled  his  hazel  switch  till  it 
whistled  about  him;  "I  am  going  back  to  Conches  to  give 
warning  to  friends  there."  And  with  that  the  Lovelace  of 
the  valley  went  out,  whistling  the  tune  of  the  martial  ditty — 

"  You  know  the  Hussars  of  the  Guard, 
And  you  don't  know  the  Trombone  in  the  Band  ?  " 

"  I  say,  Marie  !  "  the  old  grandmother  called,  "  your  sweet- 
heart is  going  a  droll  way  round  to  Conches." 

Marie  sprang  to  the  door.  "  He  is  going  to  see  Agla6  !  " 
she  cried.  "  That  goose  of  a  girl  yonder  wants  a  good  bast- 
ing, once  for  all." 

"Here,  Vaudoyer,"  said  Tonsard,  "just  go  and  see  old 
Rigou.  Then  we  shall  know  what  to  be  at.  He  is  our  oracle ; 
what  he  spouts  out  costs  nothing." 

"  Here  is  another  piece  of  folly,"  exclaimed  Jean-Louis 
under  his  breath.  "  He  does  nothing  for  nothing.  Annette 
spoke  truth  ;  he  is  a  worse  counselor  than  anger." 

"I  recommend  you  to  be  careful,"  added  Langlum£,  "for 
the  general  went  to  the  prefecture  about  your  misdoings,  and 
Sibilet  said  that  he  vowed  on  his  honor  that  he  would  go  to 
Paris  if  need  was,  to  speak  with  the  chancellor  of  France,  the 
King,  and  the  whole  shop,  but  he  would  have  the  law  of  his 
peasants." 

" His  peasants!  " 

"  Oh,  indeed !  then  perhaps  we  are  not  our  own  masters 
now?"  asked  Tonsard. 

At  this  inquiry,  Vaudoyer  went  in  search  of  the  ex-mayor, 
and  Langlume,  who  had  already  gone  out,  returned  a  step  or 
two,  and  called  back,  "You  pack  of  do-nothings!  have  you 
incomes  of  your  own  that  you  have  a  mind  to  be  your  own 
masters?" 

The  words  were  spoken  in  jest,  but  the  profound  truth  in 


THE  PEASANTRY.  231 

them  was  felt  something  in  the  way  that  a  horse  feels  a  flick 
of  the  lash. 

"Tra,  la,  la!  you  masters! — I  say,  sonny,  after  what  you 
did  this  morning,  you  are  more  like  to  play  a  tune  on  the 
rifle  than  to  have  my  clarionet  in  your  fingers." 

"Don't  you  worry  him;  he  is  just  the  one  to  make  you 
bring  up  your  wine  by  punching  your  stomach,"  said  Cath- 
erine, turning  savagely  on  her  grandfather. 


XIII. 
THE  PEASANTS'  MONEY-LENDER. 

Strategically  speaking,  Rigou  at  Blangy  was  a  sentinel  at 
an  outpost  in  time  of  war.  He  kept  watch  over  the  Aigues, 
and  thoroughly  he  did  his  work  !  No  police  spy  is  compaiable 
with  an  amateur  detective  in  the  service  of  hate. 

When  the  general  first  came  to  the  Aigues,  Rigou  must 
have  had  his  own  ideas  concerning  the  new-comer,  and  plans, 
which  came  to  nothing  on  Montcornet's  marriage  with  a 
Troisville ;  at  first  he  appeared  to  be  well-disposed  toward  the 
great  landowner.  He  had  shown  his  intentions  so  plainly 
that  Gaubertin  judged  it  expedient  to  offer  him  a  share  of 
the  spoil  so  as  to  involve  him  in  the  conspiracy  against  the 
Aigues.  But,  before  Rigou  committed  himself  and  accepted 
the  part  for  which  he  was  cast,  he  meant  to  force  the  general 
"  to  show  his  hand,"  as  he  put  it. 

One  day  after  the  countess  was  installed,  a  tiny,  green- 
painted  basket-chaise  drove  up  to  the  main  entrance  of  the 
Aigues.  In  it  sat  his  worship  the  mayor,  with  the  mayoress 
at  his  side.  The  pair  stepped  out  of  it  and  ascended  the 
flight  of  steps  to  the  terrace.  But  the  countess  was  a  devoted 
partisan  of  the  bishop,  the  clerical  party,  and  the  Abbe 
Brossette  ;  and  Francois  reported  that  "  her  ladyship  was  not 
at  home."  This  piece  of  impertinence,  which  might  have 


232  THE  PEASANTRY. 

been  expected  of  a  woman  born  in  Russia,  brought  a  yellow 
flush  to  the  Benedictine's  visage. 

If  the  lady  had  felt  any  curiosity  to  see  the  man  of  whom 
the  cure  had  said  "  that  he  was  a  soul  in  hell  who  plunged  into 
sin  as  into  a  bath  to  refresh  himself,"  she  might  perhaps  have 
avoided  that  blunder.  She  would  have  been  careful  not  to 
arouse  in  the  mayor  that  cold-blooded  hatred  which  Liberals 
bore  Royalists,  a  hatred  that  could  not  fail  to  increase,  when 
the  near  neighborhood  kept  the  memory  of  a  mortification 
ever  fresh. 

A  few  explanatory  details  concerning  this  man  will  have  the 
double  advantage  of  throwing  light  on  Rigou's  share  of  the 
"  big  business,"  as  his  two  partners  called  it,  and  of  portray- 
ing, at  the  same  time,  an  extremely  curious  type.  It  is  a 
rural  product  peculiar  to  France,  and  undiscovered  as  yet  by 
any  pencil.  And  more  than  this :  every  single  detail  is  of  im- 
mense importance  considered  in  its  bearing  on  the  history  of 
this  valley ;  Rigou's  house,  his  fashion  of  blowing  his  fire,  his 
habits  at  table,  his  opinions  and  way  of  life — none  of  these 
things  are  insignificant  from  this  point  of  view.  In  fact,  the 
renegade  illustrates  in  person  democracy  in  theory  and  prac- 
tice ;  he  is  its  alpha  and  omega  and  summum, 

Possibly  you  may  remember  the  portraits  of  other  Masters 
of  Avarice,  painted  in  other  of  these  Scenes.  The  Provincial 
Miser,  first  and  foremost — Goodman  Grandet  of  Saumur, 
whose  avarice  was  as  much  a  part  of  his  nature  as  the  tiger's 
thirst  for  blood  ;  next  follows  old  Gobseck  the  bill-discounter, 
the  Jesuit  of  Gold — for  him  the  relish  of  money  lay  in  the 
sense  of  power  over  others  which  it  gave  him,  tears  for  him 
were  as  wine,  and  he  was  a  connoisseur;  then  comes  the 
Baron  de  Nucingen,  who  raised  commercial  cheating  to  the 
height  of  statecraft ;  and,  lastly,  surely  you  recollect  a  study 
of  the  household  miser — old  Hochon  of  Issoudun — or  that 
other,  grown  avaricious  through  family  ambition,  little  La 
Baudraye  of  Sancerre  ? 


THE  PEASANTRY.  233 

And  yet,  so  diverse  are  the  shades  of  the  same  human 
affections,  so  different  the  color  they  take  up  in  passing 
through  each  human  medium,  and  this  is  so  especially  the  case 
with  avarice,  that  there  is  another  distinct  type  still  left  on 
the  dissecting  slab  of  the  amphitheatre  of  the  study  of  con- 
temporary human  nature.  Rigou  was  Rigou,  the  Selfish 
Miser,  or,  to  be  more  precise,  a  miser  full  of  tender  cares  for 
his  own  comfort,  but  hard  and  indifferent  where  others  were 
concerned.  He  was,  to  be  brief,  the  ecclesiastical  miser,  the 
monk  who  remained  a  monk  so  long  as  he  could  squeeze  the 
juice  of  the  lemon  called  Good  Living,  and  took  the  secular 
habit  the  better  to  dip  in  the  public  purse.  Let  us  begin  by 
explaining  how  he  had  come  to  lead  a  life  of  unbroken  ease 
and  comfort  under  his  own  roof. 

Blangy,  to  wit  the  cluster  of  some  sixty  houses  described  in 
Blondet's  letter  to  Nathan,  stands  on  rising  ground  on  the 
left  bank  of  the  Thune.  Each  house  is  surrounded  by  its  own 
garden,  and  in  consequence  Blangy  is  an  extremely  pretty 
village.  Some  few  of  the  houses  are  down  by  the  waterside ; 
at  the  very  top  of  the  knoll  stands  the  village  church,  and 
beside  it  the  house  that  used  to  be  the  parsonage,  the  church- 
yard lying  round  about  the  apse  end,  after  the  country  fashion. 

Rigou  took  the  opportunity  of  laying  his  sacrilegious  hands 
on  the  parsonage-house,  built  in  bygone  days  by  that  good 
catholic,  Mile.  Choin,  on  a  bit  of  ground  bought  by  her  for 
the  purpose.  The  church  was  only  separated  from  the  par- 
sonage by  the  width  of  a  terraced  garden,  whence  there  was 
a  view  over  the  lands  of  Blangy,  Soulanges,  and  Cerneux  ;  for 
the  house  stood  between  the  parks  of  the  two  manors.  A 
field  lay  on  the  side  farthest  from  the  church,  a  bit  of  land 
purchased  by  the  previous  cure  a  short  time  before  his  death. 
Rigou,  by  nature  suspicious,  had  put  up  a  wall  about  it. 

As  in  due  time  the  mayor  declined  to  give  up  the  parsonage- 
house  for  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  intended,  the  com- 
mune was  obliged  to  buy  a  cottage  for  the  cure  near  the 


234  THE  PEASANTRY. 

church,  and  to  lay  out  five  thousand  francs  in  setting  it  in 
order,  enlarging  it,  and  adding  a  bit  of  garden  to  it  under 
the  wall  of  the  sacristy,  so  that  there  might  be  direct  com- 
munication as  heretofore  between  the  cure's  house  and  the 
church. 

Both  houses,  therefore,  being  built  on  the  alignment  of  the 
church,  with  which  their  gardens  apparently  connected  them, 
looked  out  upon  a  square  space,  which  might  be  considered 
as  the  market-place  of  Blangy,  and  this  more  particularly  of 
late  years,  since  the  count  had  built  a  communal  hall,  which 
served  as  a  mayor's  office,  just  opposite  the  cure's  house,  and 
had  lodged  the  rural  policeman  in  it.  Furthermore,  he  had 
erected  a  school-house  for  the  brothers  of  the  Doctrine  chre- 
ticnnc,*  for  which  the  Abbe  Brossette  had  formerly  pleaded  in 
vain.  The  sometime  Benedictine's  house  and  the  parsonage 
where  the  young  cure  lived,  being  both  contiguous  to  the 
church,  were  as  much  united  as  separated  by  the  edifice,  and, 
furthermore,  they  overlooked  each  other,  and  consequently 
the  whole  village  knew  all  that  went  on  in  the  Abbe  Bros- 
sette's  household. 

The  village  street  wound  uphill  from  the  Thune  to  the 
church,  and  the  knoll  of  Blangy  was  crowned  by  strips  of 
vineyard  and  peasants'  gardens  and  a  patch  of  copse. 

Rigou's  house  was  the  best  in  the  village  ;  it  was  built  of 
the  large  flinls  peculiar  to  Burgundy,  laid  in  yellowish  mortar 
smoothed  out  in  squares  the  size  of  the  width  of  the  trowel, 
which  produced  a  series  of  wavy  lines  with  a  flint  surface, 
usually  black,  protruding  here  and  there  from  the  mortar. 
Bands  of  yellow  mortar,  unspotted  by  flints,  did  duty  for 
stone  facings  round  the  windows,  the  surface  (in  course  of 
time)  being  covered  with  fine  meandering  cracks,  such  as  you 
behold  in  old  ceilings.  The  clumsy  outside  shutters  were 
conspicuous  by  reason  of  thick  coats  of  dragon-green  paint. 
Scales  of  lichen  concealed  the  joints  of  the  slates  on  the  roof. 

*  A  religious  society. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  236 

It  was  a  typical  Burgundian  house,  such  as  the  traveler  may 
see  by  thousands  as  he  crosses  this  part  of  France. 

The  house-door  opened  upon  a  corridor,  in  the  middle  of 
which  the  wooden  staircase  rose.  As  soon  as  you  entered 
you  saw  the  door  of  a  large  sitting-room  lighted  by  three  win- 
dows, which  looked  out  upon  the  square.  The  kitchen,  con- 
trived underneath  the  staircase,  looked  into  a  yard  neatly 
paved  with  cobble-stones,  with  a  large  double-leaved  gate  on 
the  side  of  the  street.  So  much  for  the  first  floor. 

There  were  three  rooms  on  the  second  floor,  and  a  little 
attic  filled  the  space  in  the  roof  above. 

Outside,  in  the  yard,  a  woodshed,  stable  and  coach-house 
occupied  the  side  at  right  angles  to  the  house  ;  and  on  a  floor 
above  the  rickety  erection  there  was  a  fruit-loft  and  a  servant's 
bedroom.  Opposite  the  house  stood  the  cowshed  and  the 
pigstyes. 

The  garden  was  about  an  acre  in  extent  and  inclosed  by 
walls.  It  was  a  cure's  garden,  full  of  espaliers,  fruit-trees, 
and  trellis  vines,  and  sanded  garden-walks  with  pyramid  fruit- 
trees  on  either  side,  and  squares  of  potherbs  manured  with 
stable  litter.  The  croft  above  the  house  had  also  been 
planted  with  trees  and  inclosed  within  walls ;  it  was  a  space 
large  and  productive  enough  to  keep  a  couple  of  cows  all  the 
year  round. 

Inside  the  house  the  sitting-room  was  wainscoted  to  elbow 
height  and  hung  with  old  tapestry.  The  furniture  of  walnut- 
wood,  brown  with  age,  and  covered  with  needlework,  was  in 
keeping  with  the  old-fashioned  rooms  and  ceiling.  The  three 
main  beams  were  visible  and  painted,  but  the  intervening 
spaces  were  plastered.  Above  the  walnut-wood  chimney- 
piece  stood  a  grotesque  mirror,  its  sole  ornament  with  the  ex- 
ception of  two  brass  eggs  mounted  on  marble  pedestals. 
These  objects  split  in  half;  you  turned  back  the  upper  part  on 
its  hinge  and  it  did  duty  as  a  candle-sconce.  This  kind  of 
convertible  candlestick  with  its  little  ornamental  chains  is  an 


236  THE  PEASANTRY. 

invention  of  the  days  of  Louis  XV.,  and  is  beginning  to  grow 
scarce. 

On  a  green  and  gold  bracket  set  in  the  wall  opposite  the 
windows  stood  a  clock,  an  excellent  time-keeper  in  spite  of 
its  cheap  case.  The  curtains,  suspended  from  rings  on  an 
iron  curtain-rod,  were  fifty  years  old  at  least,  and  made  of  a 
cotton  material,  of  a  checked  pattern,  very  similar  to  the  cot- 
tons printed  in  pink  and  white  squares  that  used  to  come 
from  the  Indies.  A  sideboard  and  a  table  completed  the  list 
of  furniture,  which  was  kept  spotlessly  clean. 

By  the  hearth  stood  a  huge  easy-chair,  dedicated  to  Rigou's 
sole  use  ;  and  in  the  corner  above  the  low  whatnot,  which  he 
used  as  a  desk,  hung  from  a  brass-headed  nail  a  pair  of  bel- 
lows of  the  commonest  kind.  To  that  pair  of  bellows  Rigou 
owed  his  prosperity. 

From  this  bald  description,  which  rivals  an  auctioneer's 
sale -catalogue  for  brevity,  the  reader  might  easily  be  led  to 
imagine  that  the  furniture  of  M.  and  Mme.  Rigou's  respective 
chambers  was  limited  to  strict  necessaries,  which  would  be  a 
delusion.  Rigou's  parsimony  was  not  of  the  kind  that  denies 
itself  any  material  comfort.  Wherefore  the  most  fastidious 
fine  lady  could  have  slept  luxuriously  in  the  bed  made  for 
Rigou;  the  mattresses  were  of  the  best,  the  sheets  fine  and 
soft,  the  down  bed  had  once  been  the  gift  of  some  devout 
woman  to  a  reverend  churchman.  Ample  curtains  shut  out 
cold  draughts.  And,  as  will  be  seen,  it  was  the  same  with 
everything  else. 

At  the  outset  the  miser  had  reduced  his  wife,  who  could 
neither  read,  write,  nor  cipher,  to  slavish  obedience.  She, 
poor  creature,  had  ruled  her  late  master,  only  to  become  her 
husband's  servant  and  drudge.  She  cooked  and  washed  for 
him  with  little  or  no  help  from  the  young  person  named  An- 
nette, a  very  handsome  girl  of  nineteen,  as  much  a  slave  to 
Rigou  as  her  mistress,  with  thirty  francs  a  year  for  her  wage. 

Mme.  Rigou  was  tall,  gaunt  and  weazened-looking ;  all  the 


THE   PEASANTRY.  237 

red  in  her  sallow  face  was  gathered  on  the  cheek-bones ;  her 
head  was  always  tied  up  in  a  handkerchief,  and  she  wore  the 
same  skirt  all  the  year  round.  She  did  not  pass  a  couple  of 
hours  out  of  her  house  in  a  month,  and  spent  her  consuming 
energy  on  household  work,  in  a  way  which  only  the  most 
zealous  domestic  could  or  would  have  done.  It  would  have 
puzzled  the  keenest  observer  to  discover  in  the  woman  a  trace 
of  the  splendid  figure,  the  fresh  Rubens  coloring,  the  full- 
blown comeliness,  the  superb  teeth,  and  the  maiden  glances 
that  first  attracted  Cure  Niseron's  attention  to  the  girl.  A 
single  confinement  (she  had  one  daughter,  Mme.  Soudry 
junior)  had  decimated  her  teeth,  bleared  her  eyes,  and 
withered  her  complexion ;  her  eyelashes  had  fallen  out.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  hand  of  God  had  been  heavy  on  the  priest's 
wife. 

Yet,  like  every  well-to-do  farmer's  wife,  she  loved  to  look 
through  her  stores  of  silk  in  the  piece  and  unworn  dresses. 

Her  drawers  were  full  of  laces  and  trinkets,  which  only 
caused  Rigou's  young  servant-girls  to  commit  the  sin  of  envy, 
and  to  wish  her  death ;  her  finery  had  never  served  any  other 
purpose.  She  was  one  of  those  half-animal  creatures  who  are 
born  to  live  instinctively.  As  the  once  lovely  Arsene  had 
been  no  schemer,  the  late  Niseron's  disposition  of  his  property 
would  be  an  insoluble  mystery  but  for  the  clue.  An  odd  cir- 
cumstance had  inspired  him  with  the  notion  of  disinheriting 
his  kin.  The  story  ought  to  be  told  for  the  benefit  of  that 
vast  proportion  of  mankind  who  have  expectations. 

There  had  been  a  time  when  Mme.  Niseron,  the  Republi- 
can's wife,  had  overwhelmed  her  husband's  uncle  with  atten- 
tions, for  there  was  an  imminent  prospect  of  succeeding  to  the 
property  of  an  old  man  of  seventy-two,  and  some  forty  and 
odd  thousand  francs  would  be  enough  to  keep  the  family  of 
his  only  relation  and  heir-at-law  in  very  tolerable  comfort. 
The  late  Mme.  Niseron  was  somewhat  impatiently  expecting 
this  desirable  increase  of  fortune,  for,  beside  her  son,  she  was 


238  THE  PEASANTRY. 

the  happy  mother  of  a  sweet  little  girl,  a  mischievous,  inno- 
cent child.  Perhaps  it  is  because  such  children  are  doomed 
to  die  in  childhood  that  in  their  childhood  they  are  so  com- 
plete, for  the  little  one  died  at  fourteen  of  "pale  color,"  as 
chlorosis  is  popularly  called.  She  was  the  will-o'-the-wisp  of 
the  parsonage,  and  as  much  at  home  in  her  great-uncle's  house 
as  in  her  own.  She  had  it  all  her  own  way  there.  She  was 
fond  of  Mademoiselle  Arsene,  the  handsome  servant-maid 
whom  the  cure  took  into  his  house  in  1789.  Revolution- 
ary storms  had  even  then  relaxed  ecclesiastical  discipline. 
Hitherto  he  had  had  an  elderly  housekeeper,  but  old  Mile. 
Pichard  felt  that  she  was  failing,  and  sent  her  niece,  Arsene, 
thinking,  no  doubt,  to  hand  over  her  rights  to  that  comely 
damsel. 

In  1791,  soon  after  the  old  cure  offered  an  asylum  to  Dom 
Rigou  and  Frere  Jean,  little  Genevieve  took  it  into  her  head 
to  play  a  very  innocent  childish  prank.  One  day  at  the  par- 
sonage Arsene  and  several  children  were  playing  at  the  game 
in  which  each  child  in  turn  hides  some  object  which  the  others 
try  to  find,  and  calls  out,  "Burning!"  or  "Freezing!"  as 
the  seekers  are  nearer  or  farther  from  the  object.  Little  Gen- 
evieve, seized  with  a  sudden  whim,  hid  the  bellows  in 
Arsene's  bed.  The  bellows  could  not  be  found,  the  children 
gave  up  the  game,  Genevieve's  mother  came  to  bring  her 
home,  and  the  child  quite  forgot  to  hang  the  bellows  from  the 
nail  again. 

For  a  whole  week  Arsene  and  her  aunt  looked  for  the  bel- 
lows, then  they  too  "  gave  it  up ;  "  it  is  possible  to  live  with- 
out a  pair  of  bellows,  the  old  cure  blew  up  his  fire  with  an  old 
ear-trumpet,  made  in  times  when  everybody  had  one,  which 
proves  beyond  a  doubt  that  the  curb's  ear-trumpet  had  be- 
longed to  some  courtier  of  the  time  of  Henri  III.  But  at 
length,  about  a  month  before  the  aunt  died,  the  Abbe  Mou- 
chon,  the  cure  from  Soulanges,  and  the  whole  Niseron  family 
came  to  dinner  at  the  parsonage,  and  the  housekeeper  broke 


THE  PEASANTRY.  239 

out  into  renewed  jeremiads  over  the  bellows  which  had  so 
mysteriously  disappeared. 

"Eh  !  "  cried  little  Genevieve  Niseron,  bursting  out  laugh- 
ing. "  Why,  I  hid  them  in  Arsene's  bed  a  fortnight  ago ;  if 
she  had  made  her  bed,  the  great  lazy  thing,  she  would  have 
found  them." 

In  1791  every  one  was  free  to  laugh;  but  the  deepest 
silence  followed  the  laughter. 

"  There  is  nothing  to  laugh  at,"  said  the  old  housekeeper; 
"  Arsene  has  been  sitting  up  with  me  since  my  illness  began." 

In  spite  of  this  explanation,  the  cure  of  Blangy  looked  dag- 
gers at  Mine.  Niseron  and  her  husband,  such  a  look  as  a 
priest  can  give  when  he  thinks  that  a  trap  has  been  laid  for 
him. 

Then  the  housekeeper  died,  and  Dom  Rigou  managed  to 
exasperate  the  Abbe  Niseron  against  his  nephew  to  such  pur- 
pose that  Francois  Niseron  was  disinherited  by  a  will  made  in 
Arsene  Picard's  favor. 

All  this  had  happened  long  ago,  but  in  1823  grateful  senti- 
ment still  led  Rigou  to  blow  the  fire  with  the  ear-trumpet,  and 
the  pair  of  bellows  still  hung  from  the  nail. 

Mme.  Niseron  doted  on  her  little  girl,  and  when  the  child 
died  in  1794  the  mother  followed  her  within  the  year.  When 
the  cure  died,  Citizen  Rigou  took  the  burden  of  Arsene's  con- 
cerns upon  himself  by  taking  her  to  wife.  The  sometime  lay- 
brother  from  the  abbey  attached  himself  to  Rigou  as  a  dog 
does  to  a  master,  and  in  his  own  person  combined  the  offices 
of  groom,  dairyman,  gardener,  body-servant,  and  steward  to 
this  sensual  Harpagon. 

Rigou's  daughter  Arsene  was  married  (without  a  portion) 
to  the  public  prosecutor,  Soudry  junior ;  she  inherited  some 
share  of  her  mother's  good  looks,  together  with  her  father's 
cunning. 

Rigou  had  reached  the  age  of  sixty-seven.  For  thirty  years 
he  had  not  known  illness ;  nothing  seemed  to  shake  health 


240  THE  PEASANTRY. 

that  might  well  be  called  insolent.  He  was  tall  and  spare. 
There  were  brownish  circles  about  his  eyes,  and  the  eyelids 
were  almost  black.  In  the  morning,  when  he  exhibited  a  red, 
wrinkled,  morocco-grained  throat,  his  resemblance  to  a  condor 
was  but  the  more  strikingly  complete  by  reason  of  a  nose  of 
sanguine  hue,  immensely  long,  and  very  sharp  at  the  tip.  He 
was  almost  bald,  the  curious  conformation  of  the  back  of  his 
head  would  have  alarmed  any  one  who  understood  its  signifi- 
cance ;  for  that  long  ridge-shaped  prominence  indicates  a 
despotic  will.  The  grayish  eyes,  half-veiled  by  membranous 
webs  of  eyelids,  were  made  to  play  a  hypocrite's  part.  Two 
locks  of  hair,  of  no  particular  color,  and  so  scanty  that  they 
failed  to  hide  the  skin  beneath,  hung  about  the  large,  pointed, 
rimless  ears ;  a  noticeable  defect  this  last,  for  it  is  a  certain 
sign  of  cruelty — that  is,  a  love  of  inflicting  mental  (not  physi- 
cal) pain — when  it  does  not  indicate  mental  unsoundness. 
An  exaggeratedly  wide  mouth  and  thin  lips  betrayed  their 
owner  for  an  undaunted  trencherman  and  a  valiant  drinker  by 
a  certain  droop  at  the  corners,  where  two  comma-shaped  slits 
slobbered  perpetually  while  he  ate  or  talked.  Heliogabalus 
must  have  looked  like  that. 

His  dress  never  varied.  He  always  wore  a  long  blue  over- 
coat with  a  military  collar,  a  black  stock,  a  pair  of  trousers, 
and  a  roomy  vest  of  black  cloth.  He  had  hobnails  put  in  the 
heavy  soles  of  his  walking  shoes,  and  in  cold  weather  he  wore 
additional  soles,  knitted  by  his  wife  in  winter  evenings.  An- 
nette and  her  mistress  also  knitted  their  master's  socks. 

Rigou's  baptismal  name  was  Gregoire,  a  circumstance  which 
suggested  puns  that  his  circle  of  acquaintance  still  found  irre- 
sistibly amusing,  in  spite  of  thirty  years  of  hard  wear.  He 
was  usually  saluted  as  "  Grig  "  or  "  Rigadoon,"  or  (and  most 
frequently  of  all)  as  Grigou  (G.  Rigou) — curmudgeon. 

Want  of  opposition  and  absence  of  any  public  opinion  had 
favored  the  old  Benedictine's  favorite  pursuits.  No  one  would 
imagine  from  the  brief  outline  sketch  of  his  character  how  far 


THE  PEASANTRY.  241 

he  had  advanced  in  the  science  of  selfishness,  of  material  com- 
fort, and  sensual  enjoyment  of  every  kind.  In  the  first  place, 
he  took  his  meals  apart.  His  wife  and  Annette  waited  upon 
him,  and  then  sat  down  to  table  in  the  kitchen  with  Frere 
Jean  while  the  master  of  the  house  digested  his  meal,  slept  off 
his  wine,  and  read  the  paper. 

In  the  country  no  periodical  is  known  by  a  specific  name ; 
it  is  always  spoken  of  as  "  the  paper." 

Dinner,  breakfast,  and  supper  were  alike  composed  of  dishes 
exquisitely  prepared  with  the  culinary  skill  in  which  a  cure's 
housekeeper  excels  the  rest  of  her  sisterhood.  Mme.  Rigou 
herself,  for  instance,  churned  twice  a  week.  Cream  entered 
into  every  sauce.  Vegetables,  gathered  at  the  last  moment, 
were  transferred,  as  it  were,  straight  from  the  garden  into  the 
pot.  Parisians  are  so  accustomed  to  garden  stuff  which  has 
lain  sweltering  in  a  store  exposed  to  the  genial  influences  of 
the  sun,  the  tainted  air  of  city  streets,  and  the  greengrocer's 
watering-can,  all  promotive  of  a  specious  freshness,  that  they 
have  no  idea  of  the  delicate,  fugitive  flavors  of  vegetable 
products  when  eaten  in  some  sort  "  alive." 

The  Soulanges  butcher  supplied  his  best  meat,  under  penalty 
of  losing  the  redoubtable  Rigou's  custom.  The  poultry  were 
reared  at  the  house,  to  insure  superlative  excellence. 

A  kind  of  hypocritical  care  was  likewise  expended  on  every- 
thing that  conduced  to  Rigou's  comfort.  The  deeply  versed 
Thelemist  might  wear  slippers  of  coarse-looking  leather,  but 
within  they  were  lined  with  the  softest  lamb's-wool.  His 
coat  might  be  rough  and  coarse,  for  it  never  touched  his  skin, 
but  his  shirts  (always  washed  at  home)  were  of  the  finest  Frisian 
lawn.  The  wine  of  the  country  was  good  enough  for  his 
wife,  Annette,  and  Frere  Jean — Rigou  kept  some  of  his  own 
vintage  for  this  purpose — but  his  own  private  cellar  was 
stocked  like  a  Fleming's;  the  noblest  wines  of  Burgundy 
were  tightly  packed  among  wines  from  the  Rhone,  and  Bor- 
deaux, Champagne,  and  Roussillon,  and  Spain.  All  these 
16 


242  THE  PEASANTRY. 

were  purchased  ten  years  in  advance,  and  bottled  by  Frere 
Jean.  The  liqueurs  from  the  Indies  bore  the  name  of  Mme. 
Amphoux;  the  money-lender  had  laid  in  sufficient  of  these 
from  the  wreckage  of  a  Burgundian  castle  to  last  him  the 
term  of  his  natural  life. 

Rigou  ate  and  drank  like  Louis  XIV.,  one  of  the  largest 
consumers  on  record  ;  the  wear  and  tear  of  a  life  more  than 
voluptuous  betrayed  itself  in  this  constant  demand  for  repairs. 

Yet,  while  he  denied  himself  nothing,  he  was  a  keen  and 
hard  bargain-driver ;  he  would  haggle  over  every  trifle  as 
only  a  churchman  can  haggle.  He  did  not  trouble  himself 
overmuch,  shrewd  monk  that  he  was,  with  precautions  against 
cheating;  he  provided  himself  with  a  sample  beforehand, 
and  had  the  agreement  made  out  in  writing,  but  when  the 
wine  or  the  provisions  were  dispatched  he  gave  the  senders 
notice  that  if  the  bulk  did  not  correspond  in  every  way  with 
the  sample  he  should  refuse  delivery. 

Frere  Jean,  who  looked  after  the  fruit,  had  set  himself  to 
acquire  the  art  of  keeping  the  finest  "  orchard  stuff"  in  the 
department  through  the  winter.  Rigou  had  pears  and  apples, 
and  occasionally  grapes,  at  Easter. 

Never  was  prophet  on  the  borderland  of  deity  more  blindly 
obeyed  than  Rigou  in  every  smallest  whim.  At  a  twitch  of 
those  heavy  eyelids,  his  wife,  Annette,  and  Frere  Jean  quaked 
for  mortal  fear,  and  of  the  very  multiplicity  of  his  demands 
he  forged  the  chains  that  bound  his  three  slaves.  At  every 
moment  of  their  lives  those  hapless  creatures  felt  conscious 
that  they  were  watched,  that  they  were  under  an  overseer's 
lash;  and  at  length  they  had  come  to  take  a  kind  of  pleasure 
in  the  incessant  round  of  toil ;  they  were  too  hard-worked  to 
feel  bored,  and  this  man's  comfort  -was  the  one  all-absorbing 
thought  that  filled  their  lives. 

Annette  was  the  tenth  in  a  succession  of  comely  maid- 
servants since  the  year  1795.  Rigou  hoped  and  meant  that 
similar  relays  should  mark  his  passage  to  the  tomb.  Annette 


THE  PEASANTRY.  243 

was  sixteen  years  old  when  she  came  j  at  the  age  of  nineteen 
she  must  go.  Every  one  of  these  damsels,  chosen  from 
Auxerre,  Clamecy  and  the  Morvan  with  fastidious  care,  had 
been  beguiled  by  bright  prospects.  But  Mme.  Rigou  clung 
obstinately  to  life,  and  invariably  when  the  three  years  were 
out  some  squabble  brought  about  by  the  girl's  insolence  to 
her  unhappy  mistress  made  it  imperatively  necessary  to  part 
with  her.  Annette  was  a  masterpiece  of  delicate  beauty, 
bright  and  piquante,  worthy  to  wear  a  ducal  coronet.  She 
was  a  clever  girl,  moreover.  Rigou  knew  nothing  of  the 
understanding  between  Annette  and  Jean-Louis  Tonsard, 
which  proves  that  he  was  smitten  with  one  pretty  damsel  to 
whom  ambition  had  suggested  the  idea  of  flattering  the  lynx 
by  way  of  throwing  dust  in  his  eyes. 

The  uncrowned  Louis  XV.*  on  his  side  was  not  wholly  faith- 
ful to  the  pretty  Annette.  The  peasants  borrow  to  buy  land 
beyond  their  means;  Rigou  held  oppressive  mortgages  on 
these  properties,  and  the  result  of  it  was  that  he  made  a 
harem  of  the  whole  valley  from  Soulanges  to  a  distance  of 
fifteen  leagues  beyond  Conches  in  the  direction  of  Brie,  and 
this  at  no  cost  to  himself.  He  needed  only  to  grant  stay  of 
proceedings  as  the  price  of  the  fleeting  pleasures  on  which  age 
often  wastes  its  substance. 

This  sybarite's  life,  therefore,  cost  him  almost  nothing,  and 
Bouret  himself  could  scarce  have  surpassed  it.  Rigou's  white 
slaves  cut  his  hay  and  gathered  his  harvests,  and  brought  and 
stacked  his  firewood.  A  peasant  thinks  little  of  giving  his 
labor,  especially  if  he  can  put  off  the  evil  day  of  payment  of 
interest  in  that  way ;  and  though  Rigou  always  demanded 
small  money  payments  as  well  for  a  few  months'  grace,  he 
squeezed  some  manual  service  out  of  his  debtors  into  the  bar- 
gain. They  submitted  to  this  forced  labor,  this  corvee  (statute- 
labor)  in  all  but  name,  and  thought  that  it  cost  them  nothing 
because  they  had  not  to  put  their  hands  into  their  pockets. 

*  Mme.  de  Pompadour  and  Mme.  du  Barry  ruled  this  monarch. 


244  THE  PEASANTRY. 

It  sometimes  happened  that  a  peasant  paid  more  than  the 
original  sum  as  interest  on  the  capital  lent. 

Deep  as  a  monk,  silent  as  a  Benedictine  in  travail  of  his 
chronicle,  astute  as  a  priest,  shifty  as  every  miser  is  bound  to 
be,  yet  always  keeping  on  the  windward  side  of  the  law, 
Rigou  might  have  made  a  Tiberius  in  ancient  Rome,  a  Riche- 
lieu in  the  days  of  Louis  XIII.,  or  a  Fouche  if  he  had  had 
ambition  enough  to  assist  the  Convention ;  but  in  his  wisdom 
he  chose  to  be  a  Lucullus  in  private  life,  a  miser-sensualist. 
Hatred  gave  zest  to  this  occupation  of  harassing  the  count ; 
he  had  every  means  of  doing  it  thoroughly,  and  it  found  him 
mental  employment.  He  could  move  the  peasants  at  his  will 
by  secret  wires,  and  he  enjoyed  the  game  that  he  played.  It 
was  like  a  living  chess-tournament,  all  the  pawns  were  alive ; 
knights  rode  about  on  horseback,  bishops  babbled  like  old 
Fourchon,  the  towers  of  a  feudal  castle  glittered  in  the  sun, 
and  the  queen  was  maliciously  giving  check  to  the  king. 

Every  day  as  Rigou  arose  he  looked  out  of  his  window  at 
the  stately  roof  of  the  Aigues ;  he  could  see  the  smoke  rising 
from  the  lodges  by  those  lordly  gateways,  and  to  himself  he 
would  mutter,  "All  this  shall  be  pulled  down,  I  will  dry  up 
the  streams  and  cut  down  the  shady  forest."  And  while  he 
hunted  his  large  quarry  he  had  a  more  insignificant  prey.  The 
castle  was  to  fall,  but  the  renegade  flattered  himself  that  he 
would  murder  the  Abbe  Brossette  by  pin-pricks. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  add,  by  way  of  a  final  touch  to  the 
portrait,  that  the  sometime  monk  made  a  practice  of  going  to 
mass,  regretting  that  his  wife  continued  to  live,  and  manifest- 
ing a  desire  to  be  reconciled  with  the  church  so  soon  as  he 
should  be  a  widower.  He  greeted  the  Abbe  Brossette  defer- 
entially when  they  met,  speaking  suavely,  never  allowing  his 
temper  to  get  the  better  of  him.  Indeed,  generally  speaking, 
every  man  who  has  been  connected  with  the  church  appears 
to  possess  the  long-suffering  of  an  insect.  To  her  discipline 
her  servants  owe  a  sense  of  decorum  which  has  been  signally 


THE  PEASANTRY.  245 

lacking  among  the  Frenchmen  of  the  last  twenty  years,  and 
which  those  who  look  upon  themselves  as  well-bred  men  do 
not  always  possess.  When  the  Revolution  shook  ecclesiastics 
out  of  their  convents  and  threw  them  upon  the  world,  the 
children  of  the  church  gave  proof  of  their  superior  training 
by  a  coolness  and  reticence  which  never  forsook  them  even  in 
apostasy. 

That  little  matter  of  the  will  in  1792  had  opened  Gau- 
bertin's  eyes  to  the  depths  of  guile  concealed  by  that  face, 
with  its  taint  of  guileful  hypocrisy,  and  from  that  time  forth 
he  made  a  confidant  of  the  fellow-worshiper  of  the  Golden 
Calf.  When  the  firm  of  Leclercq  was  founded  he  gave  Rigou 
a  hint  to  invest  fifty  thousand  francs  in  the  venture  and  guar- 
anteed the  undertaking.  Rigou  became  a  sleeping  partner  of 
so  much  the  more  consequence  because  he  left  his  money  at 
compound  interest.  At  the  present  time  his  interest  in  the 
house  amounted  to  a  hundred  thousand  francs,  although  in 
1816  he  had  drawn  out  about  eighty  thousand  to  put  into  the 
Funds,  an  investment  which  brought  him  in  seventeen  thou- 
sand francs  per  annum.  Lupin  knew  of  his  own  knowledge 
that  Rigou  had  at  least  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs 
lent  out  in  mortgages  for  small  amounts  on  large  bits  of  prop- 
erty. Ostensibly  the  money-lender  derived  a  net  income  of 
fourteen  thousand  francs  or  thereabout  from  land.  Altogether, 
it  was  pretty  plain  that  Rigou's  income  must  amount  to  some- 
thing like  forty  thousand  francs,  but  his  capital  was  an  un- 
known x,  a  fourth  term  in  a  proportion  sum  which  baffled 
arithmetic,  and  the  devil  alone  knew  the  ins  and  outs  of  the 
jobbery  in  which  Rigou  and  Langlume  were  concerned. 

The  terrible  money-lender  reckoned  on  another  score  of 
years  of  life,  and  had  invented  a  set  of  hard  and  fast  rules  for 
his  guidance  in  business.  He  never  lent  a  farthing  to  a  peas- 
ant unless  the  man  was  a  purchaser  of  seven  acres  at  the  least, 
and  had  actually  paid  down  one-half  of  the  purchase-money. 
Clearly  Rigou  was  well  aware  of  the  weak  spot  in  our  legisla- 


246  THE  PEASANTRY. 

tion  with  regard  to  the  expropriation  of  small  parcels  of  land, 
and  of  the  danger  to  the  Inland  Revenue  Department  and  the 
land-owning  interest  arising  from  the  excessive  subdivision 
of  property.  Where  is  the  sense  of  suing  a  peasant  for  the 
value  of  a  single  furrow  when  the  man  has  but  five  furrows 
altogether?  The  eyes  of  individual  interest  will  always  see 
twenty-five  years  ahead  of  the  furthest  vision  of  any  legislative 
assembly.  What  a  lesson  for  a  nation  !  A  law  that  is  not  a 
dead-letter  always  springs  from  the  mighty  brain  of  a  single 
man  of  genius,  it  is  not  made  by  laying  nine  hundred  heads 
together ;  no  matter  how  able  the  men  may  be,  taken  apart, 
they  dwarf  each  other  in  a  crowd.  After  all,  in  Rigou's  rule 
is  there  not  the  right  principle?  What  better  means  have  we 
of  putting  a  stop  to  the  present  state  of  things,  when  land- 
owning is  reduced  to  an  absurdity  and  a  square  yard  of  soil  is 
divided  into  halves,  and  thirds,  and  quarters,  and  tenths,  as  in 
the  commune  of  Argenteuil,  which  numbers  thirty  thousand 
parcels  of  land  ? 

Such  reforms,  however,  demand  cooperation  as  widespread 
as  the  arrangement  which  oppressed  this  arrondissement.  As 
Rigou  found  Lupin  about  one-third  of  the  total  amount  of 
legal  business  which  he  transacted,  it  was  natural  that  the  Sou- 
langes  notary  should  be  Rigou's  faithful  ally.  In  this  way  the 
pirate  could  add  the  amount  of  illegal  interest  to  the  capital 'in 
the  bond,  and  if  the  borrower  was  a  married  man  he  was 
careful  to  make  husband  and  wife  jointly  and  severally  re- 
sponsible. The  peasant,  overjoyed  to  have  but  five  per  cent. 
to  pay,  so  long  as  the  loan  was  undischarged,  always  hoped 
to  rid  himself  of  the  debt  by  unsparing  toil  and  by  high 
farming,  which  raised  the  value  of  Rigou's  security. 

This  is  the  real  secret  of  the  wonders  worked  by  the  "  spade 
husbandry"  that  deludes  superficial  economists,  a  political 
blunder  which  sends  French  money  into  Germany  to  pay  for 
horses.  That  animal  is  in  process  of  extinction  in  France, 
while  the  breeding  and  grazing  of  horned  cattle  have  fallen  off 


THE   PEASANTRY.  247 

to  such  an  extent  that  butcher  meat  will  soon  be  beyond  the 
reach,  not  merely  of  the  working  population,  but  also  of  the 
class  above  them.* 

So  sweat  poured  for  Rigou  from  many  a  brow  between 
Conches  and  Ville-aux-Fayes,  and  Rigou  was  respected  by 
everybody;  while  the  general,  who  paid  his  workers  well  and 
was  the  one  man  who  brought  money  into  the  country,  was 
cursed  for  his  pains  and  hated  as  the  rich  man  is  hated  of  the 
poor.  Would  such  a  state  of  things  be  comprehensible  but 
for  the  foregoing  bird's-eye  view  of  Mediocracy? 

Fourchon  had  spoken  truth  when  he  said  that  the  bourgeois 
had  taken  the  place  of  the  lords.  Peasant-proprietors  of  the 
Courtecuisse  type  were  the  serfs  of  a  modern  Tiberius  in  the 
valley  of  Avonne,  just  as,  in  Paris,  the  manufacturer  without 
capital  must  slave  for  the  large  capitalist's  benefit. 

Soudry  followed  Rigou's  example.  His  area  extended  from 
Soulanges  to  Ville-aux-Fayes  and  five  leagues  beyond ;  the 
two  money-lenders  had  divided  the  district  between  them. 

Gaubertin's  greed  was  on  a  grander  scale.  Not  merely  did 
he  himself  avoid  competition  with  his  associates,  but  he 
diverted  the  capital  of  Ville-aux-Fayes  from  these  profitable 
local  investments.  The  power  exercised  at  elections  by  this 
triumvirate  may  be  imagined  when  nearly  every  voter's  for- 
tunes depended  upon  his  complacence. 

Hatred,  ability,  and  command  of  money — this  was  the  for- 
midable triangular  array  of  the  enemy  intrenched  by  the 
Aigues;  an  enemy  who  watched  all  the  general's  movements; 
an  enemy  in  constant  communication  with  sixty  to  eighty 
small  proprietors,  each  of  whom  had  relatives  or  connections 
among  the  peasantry,  who  feared  one  and  all  of  them  as 
debtors  fear  a  creditor. 

Rigou  was  a  Tonsard  of  a  larger  growth.  Tonsard  lived 
by  plain  theft.  Rigou  grew  fat  on  legalized  robbery.  Both 
were  fond  of  good  living  ;  both  men  were  essentially  of  the 
*  See  "  The  Village  Parson." 


248  THE  PEASANTRY. 

same  species ;  but  the  one  was  nature  uncultivated,  the  other 
nature  submitted  to  the  sharpening  discipline  of  the  cloister. 

It  was  about  four  o'clock  that  afternoon  when  Vaudoyer 
left  the  Grand-I-Vert  to  ask  counsel  of  the  ex-mayor,  and 
Rigou  dined  at  four.  Vaudoyer,  finding  the  house-door  shut, 
peered  in  between  the  window-curtains. 

"  Monsieur  Rigou  !  "  he  called.     "It  is  I — Vaudoyer." 

Frere  Jean  came  out  of  the  yard  gate  in  another  moment, 
and  bade  him  come  in  with  him. 

"  Come  into  the  garden,"  said  he,  "  the  master  has  com- 
pany." 

The  "company"  was  none  other  than  Sibilet,  who  had 
come  under  the  pretext  of  arriving  at  an  understanding  with 
regard  to  Brunei's  recent  notice  of  judgment ;  but,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  pair  were  discussing  a  very  different  matter.  He 
had  come  in  just  as  the  usurer  was  finishing  his  dessert. 

A  dazzling  white  cloth  was  spread  on  the  square  table 
(Rigou  insisted  on  clean  table-linen  every  day,  caring  little 
for  the  trouble  given  to  his  wife  and  Annette),  and  the  visitor 
beheld  the  arrival  of  a  bowl  heaped  up  with  strawberries  and 
apricots,  peaches,  figs,  almonds,  and  all  the  fruits  in  season, 
served,  almost  as  daintily  as  at  the  Aigues,  upon  green  vine- 
leaves,  laid  on  white  porcelain  plates. 

When  Sibilet  came  into  the  room,  Rigou  bade  him  bolt  the 
double  doors  (an  arrangement  adapted  to  every  room  in  the 
house,  with  the  double  object  of  keeping  out  draughts  and 
deadening  sounds).  Then  he  inquired  what  urgent  business 
had  brought  the  steward  in  broad  daylight,  when  it  was  so 
much  simpler  and  safer  to  come  after  dark. 

"  It  is  this,"  said  Sibilet.  "  Here  is  the  Upholsterer  talk- 
ing of  going  to  Paris  to  see  the  keeper  of  the  seals.  He  is 
capable  of  doing  you  a  lot  of  harm  ;  he  may  ask  to  have  your 
son-in-law  displaced,  or  for  a  change  of  judges  and  president, 
too,  at  Ville-aux-Fayes,  more  particularly  when  he  comes  to 


THE  PEASANTRY.  249 

read  the  notice  of  this  new  decision  in  your  favor.  He  is  in 
a  towering  rage.  He  is  shrewd,  too,  and  the  Abbe  Brossette 
who  advises  him  is  one  that  can  enter  the  lists  against  you  and 
Gaubertin.  The  priests  are  in  power  just  now,  and  his  lord- 
ship the  bishop  is  very  friendly  with  the  Abbe  Brossette.  The 
countess  said  something  about  speaking  to  her  cousin  (the 
Comte  de  Casteran)  concerning  Nicolas.  Then  Michaud  is 
beginning  to  see  how  the  land  lies." 

"You  are  afraid,"  said  Rigou.  The  words  were  spoken 
quite  blandly,  but  the  glance  that  accompanied  them  was  ap- 
palling; suspicion  brought  something  like  a  gleam  into  the 
dull  eyes.  "Are  you  calculating  whether  it  would  pay  you 
better  to  throw  in  your  lot  with  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  Mont- 
cornet  ?." 

"I  don't  exactly  see  how  I  am  to  come  honestly  by  four 
thousand  francs  every  year  to  put  by,  as  I  have  been  doing 
these  last  five  years,"  said  Sibilet  bluntly.  "  Monsieur  Gau- 
bertin has  promised  me  all  sorts  of  fine  things,  but  matters 
are  coming  to  a  head,  there  will  certainly  be  a  collision,  and 
it  is  one  thing  to  promise  and  another  to  keep  your  promise 
after  the  battle  is  won." 

"  I  will  speak  to  him,"  said  Rigou  quietly,  "and  in  the 
meantime  this  is  what  I  would  say  if  it  were  any  business  of 
mine :  '  For  the  last  five  years  you  have  been  taking  four 
thousand  francs  a  year  to  Monsieur  Rigou,  and  he,  worthy 
man,  is  paying  you  seven  and  a  half  per  cent,  per  annum.  At 
this  present  moment  you  have  twenty-seven  thousand  francs 
standing  to  your  credit,  for  the  money  has  been  accumulating 
at  compound  interest ;  but  as  there  is  a  certain  document 
under  private  seal  extant,  and  Monsieur  Rigou  has  a  duplicate 
copy,  the  steward  of  the  Aigues  will  be  dismissed  on  the  day 
when  the  Abbe  Brossette  lays  that  document  before  the  Up- 
holsterer, more  especially  if  an  anonymous  letter  is  sent  be- 
forehand to  warn  him  that  his  steward  is  playing  a  double 
game.  So  you  would  do  better  to  hunt  with  us,  without  ask- 


250  THE  PEASANTRY. 

ing  for  your  bone  in  advance,  and  so  much  the  more  so  since 
that  Monsieur  Rigou  is  not  legally  bound  to  pay  you  either 
compound  interest  or  seven  and  a  half  per  cent,  on  your  money ; 
and  if  you  tried  to  recover,  he  would  let  you  sue  him  and  pay 
the  money  into  court ;  and  before  you  could  touch  your 
twenty  thousand  francs  the  matter  would  be  spun  out  with 
delays  till  judgment  was  given  in  the  court  of  Ville-aux-Fayes. 
If  you  behave  yourself  discreetly  when  Monsieur  Rigou  is  owner 
of  your  house  at  the  Aigues  property,  you  might  keep  on  there 
with  thirty  thousand  francs  of  your  own,  and  thirty  thousand 
more  which  he  might  feel  disposed  to  lend  you;  and  that 
would  be  so  much  the  better  for  you,  because,  as  soon  as  the 
Aigues  is  split  up  into  little  lots,  the  peasants  will  be  down 
upon  them  like  poverty  upon  the  world.'  That  is  what  Mon- 
sieur Gaubertin  might  say  to  you  ;  but  for  my  own  part  I  have 
nothing  to  say,  it  is  no  business  of  mine.  Gaubertin  and  I 
have  our  grounds  for  complaint  against  this  child  of  the  people 
who  beats  his  own  father,  and  we  are  carrying  out  our  own 
ideas.  If  Friend  Gaubertin  needs  you,  I  myself  have  need 
of  nobody,  for  every  one  is  very  much  at  my  service.  As  to 
the  keeper  of  the  seals,  'tis  an  office  that  changes  hands  pretty 
often,  while  some  of  us  are  always  here." 

"At  any  rate,  you  have  had  warning,"  said  Sibilet,  feeling 
that  he  had  been  a  consummate  ass. 

"Of  what?"  demanded  Rigou,  with  artful  subtlety. 

"Of  the  Upholsterer's  intentions,"  said  the  steward 
meekly  ;  "  he  has  gone  to  the  prefecture  in  a  towering  rage." 

"  Let  him  go.  If  Montcornet  and  his  like  did  not  wear  out 
carriage  wheels,  what  would  become  of  the  coach-builders?" 

"I  will  bring  you  three  thousand  francs  to-night  at  eleven 
o'clock,"  said  Sibilet ;  "  but  you  might  help  me  on  a  little 
by  making  over  one  of  your  mortgages  to  me ;  one  where  the 
man  is  getting  behindhand — one  that  might  bring  me  one  or 
two  nice  little  bits  of  land " 

"  There  is  Courtecuisse's  mortgage.     I  want  to  handle  him 


THE  PEASANTRY.  251 

carefully,  for  he  is  the  best  shot  in  the  department.  If  I 
transferred  him  to  you,  it  would  look  as  though  the  Uphol- 
sterer were  harassing  the  rascal  through  you,  and  that  would 
kill  two  birds  with  one  stone.  He  would  be  ready  for  any- 
thing when  he  saw  that  he  was  sinking  lower  than  old  Four- 
chon.  Courtecuisse  is  wearing  his  life  out  at  the  Bachelerie; 
he  has  been  putting  in  espaliers  along  the  garden  walls, 
and  altogether  the  place  has  improved  very  much.  The  little 
farm  is  worth  four  thousand  francs;  the  count  would  give 
you  that  much  for  the  three  acres  of  land  behind  his  stables. 
If  Courtecuisse  were  not  a  gormandizing  rogue,  he  would  have 
paid  the  interest  with  the  game  killed  there." 

"  Very  well.  Transfer  the  mortgage  to  me ;  it  will  put  butter 
on  my  bread.  I  shall  have  the  house  and  garden  for  nothing, 
and  the  count  will  buy  the  three  acres." 

"What  am  I  to  have?" 

"  Good  Lord  !  you  would  draw  blood  from  a  stone  !  "  cried 
Sibilet.  "And  here  have  I  just  got  an  order  out  of  the  Up- 
holsterer to  set  the  law  in  motion  to  regulate  the  gleaning." 

"You  have  gained  that  point,  have  you,  my  lad?"  asked 
Rigou,  who  had  himself  suggested  the  idea  to  Sibilet  a  few 
days  previously,  and  recommended  him  to  pass  it  on  in  the 
shape  of  advice  to  the  general.  "  We  have  him  now  !  It  is 
all  over  with  him !  But  it  is  not  enough  simply  to  have  a 
hold  on  him ;  he  must  be  twisted  up  like  a  quid  of  tobacco. 
Just  draw  the  bolts,  my  lad,  and  tell  my  wife  to  bring  in 
coffee  and  liqueurs  for  me,  and  tell  Jean  to  put  the  horse  in. 
I  am  going  over  to  Soulanges.  See  you  again  in  the  evening. 
Good-day,  Vaudoyer,"  the  ex-mayor  beheld  his  former  rural 
policeman.  "  Well,  what  is  it?" 

Vaudoyer  gave  a  full  account  of  the  day's  events  at  the 
Grand-I-Vert,  and  ended  by  asking  Rigou  whether  the  general 
had  the  law  on  his  side. 

"He  has  a  right  to  do  so,"  said  Rigou  decisively.  "We 
have  a  hard  lord  of  the  manor,  and  the  Abbe  Brossette  is  a 


252  THE  PEASANTRY. 

shrewd  fellow.  Your  cure  put  these  notions  into  his  head, 
because  you  don't  go  to  mass,  you  pack  of  heretics?  /am 
careful  to  go  myself.  There  is  a  God,  you  see !  You  will 
have  to  drink  to  the  dregs,  the  Upholsterer  will  always  be 
beforehand  with  you " 

"Very  good.  We  will  glean,"  said  Vaudoyer,  in  the 
dogged  tone  of  a  Burgundian. 

"Without  a  pauper's  certificate?"  queried  the  usurer. 
"They  say  that  he  has  gone  to  the  prefecture  to  ask  for  the 
soldiers  so  as  to  make  you  return  to  your  duty " 

"We  will  glean  as  we  have  done  in  the  past,"  Vaudoyer 
repeated. 

"  Glean  !  Monsieur  Sarcus  will  see  if  you  are  right,"  said 
the  money-lender,  and  his  manner  seemed  to  promise  that  the 
justice  of  the  peace  would  protect  the  gleaners. 

"  We  will  glean  and  we  shall  be  there  in  force — or  Bur- 
gundy will  no  longer  be  Burgundy,"  said  Vaudoyer.  "  If  the 
gendarmes  have  swords,  we  have  scythes,  and  we  shall  see  !  " 

At  half-past  four  the  great  green-painted  yard-gates  of  the 
old  parsonage  turned  on  their  hinges,  Frere  Jean  appeared 
leading  the  bay  horse  by  the  bridle,  and  the  chaise  turned  out 
into  the  square.  Mme.  Rigou  and  Annette  stood  on  the  step 
in  front  of  the  house-door  watching  the  little  green  basket- 
chaise  and  the  master  ensconced  on  the  snug  cushions  under 
the  leather  hood. 

"  Don't  stay  out  late,  sir,"  said  Annette,  with  a  little  pout 
of  the  lips. 

By  this  time  all  the  village  had  heard  of  the  mayor's 
threatened  proclamation,  and  the  folk  came  to  their  doors,  or 
stopped  short  in  the  main  street,  to  watch  Rigou  pass.  They 
fondly  thought  that  he  was  going  to  Soulanges  to  defend  their 
rights.  • 

"  Well,  well,  Madame  Courtecuisse,  our  old  mayor  will  be 
going  to  take  our  part,  no  doubt,"  said  an  old  woman  with  a 
spindle  in  her  hands ;  she  was  deeply  interested  in  the  ques- 


A    TUG    AT    HIS    GRANDFATHER'S     BLOUSE,    WHICH    SENT    THE 
OLD    MAN    OVER    ON    TO    THE    MOUND. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  253 

tion  of  forest  rights,  for  her  husband  sold  the  stolen  faggots  in 
Soulanges. 

"  Dear  me  !  yes;  it  makes  his  heart  bleed  to  see  such  things 
going  on,  he  is  as  sorry  about  it  as  any  of  you,"  answered 
Courtecuisse's  wife.  Poor  woman,  she  quaked  at  the  bare 
mention  of  the  money-lender's  name,  and  praised  him  from 
sheer  fear  and  trembling. 

"Ah!  I  don't  want  to  make  too  much  of  it;  but  he  has 
been  badly  treated,  he  has !  Good-day,  Monsieur  Rigou," 
said  the  old  woman  as  she  span,  for  Rigou  gave  a  greeting  to 
her  as  well  as  to  his  creditor's  wife. 

The  money-lender  crossed  the  Thune  (never  impassable  in 
the  worst  of  weather),  and  Tonsard,  stirring  abroad,  spoke  to 
Rigou  on  the  road.  "  Well,  Father  Rigou,  so  the  Upholsterer 
means  to  make  slaves  of  us,  does  he  ?  " 

"We  shall  see  about  that,"  returned  Rigou,  touching  up 
his  horse. 

"  He  will  find  a  way  of  defending  us,  he  will !  "  said  Ton- 
sard to  a  group  of  women  and  children  who  had  gathered 
about  him. 

"  Oh  !  he  has  you  in  mind ;  an  innkeeper  has  his  gudgeons 
in  mind  as  he  cleans  his  frying-pan,"  remarked  Fourchon. 

"You  just  keep  your  clapper  quiet  when  you  are  drunk," 
said  Mouche,  with  a  tug  at  his  grandfather's  blouse,  which 
sent  the  old  man  over  on  to  the  mound  at  the  foot  of  a  poplar. 
"  If  the  rascally  monk  heard  what  you  said,  he  would  not  give 
so  much  for  your  words " 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  real  cause  of  Rigou's  hasty  visit  to 
Soulanges  was  the  weighty  news  which  Sibilet  had  brought, 
news  that  seemed  to  threaten  the  secret  coalition  among  the 
bourgeoisie  of  the  Avonne  valley. 


BOOK  II. 
I. 

THE   BEST  SOCIETY   OF  SOULANGES. 

Six  kilometres  from  Blangy,  "  be  the  same  more  or  less" 
(to  borrow  the  legal  formula),  and  at  a  like  distance  from 
Ville-aux-Fayes,  the  little  town  of  Soulanges  rises  amphitheatre- 
fashion  up  a  hillside,  a  spur  of  the  long  cdte  (rib)  which  runs 
parallel  to  the  other  ridge  above  the  Avonne.  Soulanges  the 
Picturesque,  as  they  call  it,  has  a  better  claim  to  the  title  than 
Mantes  itself. 

Under  this  long  low  hill  the  Thune  widens  out  over  a  bed 
of  clay  into  a  sheet  of  water  some  thirty  acres  in  extent,  with 
all  the  mills  of  Soulanges  dotted  over  the  little  cluster  of 
islands  at  the  end,  composing  a  picture  as  charming  as  any 
that  the  landscape  gardener's  art  can  devise.  Farther  yet  the 
Thune  feeds  all  the  rivers  and  artificial  water  in  Soulanges 
park,  and  flows  at  last  through  a  stately  channel  to  join  the 
Avonne. 

Opposite  the  town  stands  the  castle  of  Soulanges,  one  of  the 
finest  manor-houses  in  Burgundy,  built  in  the  reign  of  Louis 
XIV.  from  Mansard's  designs.  The  local  road  winds  between 
the  town  and  the  aforesaid  sheet  of  water,  vaingloriously 
dubbed  "the  Lake  of  Soulanges  "  by  the  townspeople. 

The  picturesqueness  of  the  little  place  is  Swiss  rather  than 
French  in  character;  you  shall  scarcely  find  such  another 
town  in  France.  Blondet,  it  may  be  remembered,  compared 
it  in  his  letter  to  Swiss  scenery,  and,  in  fact,  it  reminds  you 
of  the  charming  outskirts  of  Neuchatel,  the  gay  vineyards  that 
engirdle  Soulanges  heightening  a  resemblance  which  would  be 
complete  but  for  the  absence  of  Alps  or  Jura  range.  The 
(254) 


THE  PEASANTRY.  255 

streets  rise  one  above  another  on  the  hillside;  the  houses 
stand  apart  in  separate  gardens,  so  that  the  general  effect  of 
the  town  is  not  the  usual  one  of  a  crowd  of  dwellings  packed 
together,  but  of  masses  of  greenery  and  blue  or  red  roofs 
among  the  flowers  and  trees,  pleached  alleys,  and  terraced 
walks,  of  many-colored  detail  blended  into  a  picturesque 
whole. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  the  lords  of  Soulanges,  in  their  munifi- 
cence, built  the  church  of  stone,  reserving  for  themselves  a 
chapel  in  the  choir  and  another  chapel  in  the  crypt  for  their 
family  vault.  A  border  of  richly  ornamented  circles  filled 
with  small  carved  figures  follows  the  outline  of  the  great  arch 
of  the  doorway  (as  at  the  church  of  Longjumeau),  and  a  shaft 
terminating  in  a  pinnacle  stands  in  a  niche  on  either  side. 
Up  above,  in  a  triglyph,  sits  a  sculptured  virgin  with  the  -In- 
fant Saviour  in  her  arms.  It  is  a  kind  of  doorway  common 
enough  among  such  little  churches  of  that  date  as  have  had 
the  luck  to  escape  the  ravages  of  the  Calvin ists.  The  outer 
walls  of  the  aisles  consist  of  five  arches,  outlined  by  mould- 
ings, and  filled  in  with  masonry  pierced  here  and  there  by 
windows.  The  flying  buttresses  of  the  apse  are  worthy  of  a 
cathedral.  The  square-based  belfry  tower,  built  over  one  of 
the  chancels,  is  a  landmark  in  the  countryside,  for  the  church 
stands  at  the  upper  end  of  the  great  market-place  at  Soulanges, 
through  which  the  road  passes  on  its  lowest  side. 

This  market-place  at  Soulanges  is  a  fair-sized  open  space 
surrounded  by  a  collection  of  quaint-looking  houses  built 
about  it  at  various  times.  A  good  few  of  them  are  built  half 
of  brick,  half  of  timber,  with  a  waistband  of  slates  about 
their  middles  to  protect  the  principal  beams.  These  have 
stood  there  since  the  Middle  Ages.  Others,  built  of  stone 
and  adorned  with  balconies,  display  the  gable  beloved  of  our 
grandsires,  which  dates  back  as  far  as  the  twelfth  century. 
Several  attract  your  eyes  by  their  quaint  jutting  beams  covered 
with  grotesque  figures,  which  call  up  memories  of  the  times 


256  THE  PEASANTRY. 

when  every  burgher  was  a  merchant  and  lived  above  his  store. 
But  most  magnificent  of  all  is  the  sculptured  facade  of  the 
ancient  mansion-house  of  the  bailiwick,  standing  in  a  line 
with  the  church,  to  which  it  furnishes  a  worthy  companion- 
building.  This  old  house  was  sold  by  the  nation  and  bought 
by  the  commune,  to  do  duty  as  town  hall,  mayor's  office,  and 
court-house,  for  M.  Sarcus  had  sat  there  since  the  institution 
of  justices  of  the  peace. 

This  outline  sketch  will  give  the  reader  some  idea  of  the 
market-square  of  Soulanges,  where  the  charming  central  foun- 
tain stands  which  Marshal  Soulanges  brought  from  Italy  in 
1520.  No  great  city  need  blush  to  own  such  a  monument. 
A  jet  of  water,  brought  from  a  spring  high  up  on  the  hillside, 
plays  perpetually  over  a  group  of  four  white  marble  Cupids, 
who  bear  a  basket  full  of  grapes  on  their  heads,  and  distribute 
the  water  from  the  conch  shells  in  their  hands. 

Perhaps  Emile  Blondet  is  the  last  lettered  traveler  who  will 
pass  that  way;  but  if  in  the  coming  time  another  should  pene- 
trate to  Soulanges,  he  will  at  once  recognize  in  the  market- 
square,  the  "public  place"  of  Spanish  drama  and  Moliere's 
plays,  an  old  familiar  piece  of  stage  scenery,  and  abiding  wit- 
ness to  the  fact  that  comedy  is  the  invention  of  a  warm  cli- 
mate, where  the  business  of  life  is  largely  carried  on  out  of 
doors  and  in  public.  The  market-place  at  Soulanges  resembles 
the  conventional  square  of  the  stage  the  more  closely  in  that 
the  two  principal  streets  of  the  town  enter  it  from  either  side 
just  opposite  the  fountain,  furnishing  an  exact  equivalent  of 
the  wings  whence  masters  and  servants  issue  to  meet,  and 
whither  they  fly  to  avoid  each  other. 

At  the  corner  of  one  of  these  streets,  Maitre  Lupin's  escut- 
cheon hung,  gloriously  conspicuous.  The  square  is  the  aris- 
tocratic quarter  of  Soulanges  ;  Sarcus,  Guerbet  the  receiver  of 
taxes,  Brunet,  Gourdon  the  registrar,  and  his  brother  the 
doctor,  and  old  M.  Gendrin-Vattebled,  crown  agent  of  woods 
and  forests,  all  lived  round  about  it,  and,  being  mindful  of  the 


THE  PEASANTRY.  257 

name  given  to  their  town,  all  made  a  point  of  keeping  their 
houses  in  handsome  repair. 

"  Madame  Soudry's  house,"  as  it  was  called  (for  the  first 
person  in  the  commune  was  totally  eclipsed  by  the  potent 
personality  of  the  late  Mile.  Laguerre's  waiting-woman) — 
Mme.  Soudry's  house  was  entirely  modern.  It  had  been  built 
by  a  wealthy  wine  merchant,  a  Soulanges  man  who  had  made 
money  in  Paris  and  returned  in  1793  to  buy  corn  for  his  native 
town.  The  mob  massacred  him  for  a  "  regrater,"  a  miserable 
stonemason  (Godain's  uncle)  having  raised  the  cry  after  a 
dispute  which  arose  out  of  the  building  of  the  fine  new  house. 

The  next-of-kin  quarreled  so  long  and  heartily  over  the 
property,  that  when  Soudry  came  back  in  1798  he  was  able  to 
buy  the  wine-merchant's  palace  for  one  thousand  crowns  in 
coin.  He  let  it  at  first  to  the  department  for  a  police-station ; 
but  in  1811  Mile.  Cochet  (whom  he  consulted  on  all  points) 
warmly  opposed  a  renewal  of  the  lease  ;  it  was  impossible  to 
live  in  a  house  "  in  concubinage  with  the  barracks,"  she  said. 
So  a  police-station  was  built  in  a  side-street  close  to  the  town 
hall  for  the  gendarmerie,  at  the  expense  of  the  town  of  Sou- 
langes, and  the  police-sergeant's  house,  being  relieved  of  the 
defiling  presence  of  the  gendarmerie  and  their  horses,  was 
forthwith  swept  and  garnished. 

It  is  a  single-story  house,  with  attics  in  the  mansard  roof. 
On  three  sides  it  looks  out  over  a  wide  view ;  to  wit,  over  the 
market-place,  the  "lake,"  and  the  garden;  but  the  fourth 
gives  upon  the  yard  which  lies  between  it  and  the  neighboring 
house  of  a  grocer — Wattebled  by  name — a  man  who  did  not 
move  in  the  "  best  society  "  in  Soulanges.  He  was  the  father 
of  the  "beautiful  Mme.  Plissoud,"  of  whom  more  must  pres- 
ently be  said. 

Every  little  town  has  its  "  beautiful  Madame  Such-an-one," 
just  as  its  boasts  its  Socquard  and  its  Cafe  of  Peace. 

It  is  easy  to  guess  that  the  side  of  the  house  which  over- 
looks the  lake  likewise  looks  out  upon  a  terraced  garden, 
17 


258  THE  PEASANTRY. 

sloping,  not  over-steeply,  down  to  the  stone  balustrade,  which 
borders  it  along  the  roadside.  On  every  step  of  the  flight 
which  descends  from  the  terrace  to  the  garden  stands  a  myrtle, 
or  pomegranate,  or  an  orange-tree,  visible  justifications  of  a 
small  conservatory  below — a  prescrvatory,  as  Mme.  Soudry 
persistently  miscalls  it.  The  house-door  on  the  side  of  the 
market-place  is  approached  by  a  short  flight  of  steps.  The 
great  gateway  is  seldom  used,  except  on  great  occasions,  after 
the  usual  habit  of  a  country  town,  or  to  admit  the  trades- 
people or  the  master's  horse.  The  friends  of  the  family  paid 
their  calls  on  foot  and  climbed  the  flight  of  steps  to  the 
street-door. 

The  Soudry  mansion  is  a  dreary-looking  house.  Every 
course  of  masonry  is  marked  out  by  "channel  joints,"  as 
masons  call  them ;  the  mouldings  round  the  windows  are 
alternately  thick  and  thin,  after  the  style  of  the  Gabriel  and 
Perronnet  wings  of  the  Tuileries.  Such  architectural  orna- 
ment in  a  very  small  town  gives  a  monumental  look  to  a  house 
already  grown  famous  in  the  district. 

In  the  opposite  corner  of  the  market-place  stood  Soc- 
quard's  celebrated  Cafe  of  Peace,  which,  with  the  too  en- 
chanting Tivoli,  deserves  a  more  detailed  description  in  its 
place  than  the  Soudry  mansion. 

Rigou  very  seldom  came  to  Soulanges ;  for  everybody — 
Lupin  the  Notary,  Gaubertin,  Soudry,  and  Gendrin — alike 
went  to  Blangy  to  call  on  him — such  fear  men  had  of  Rigou. 
But  any  experienced  person,  and  the  ex-Benedictine  was  ex- 
perienced, would  have  imitated  his  reserve.  In  order  to 
make  this  clear,  it  is  necessary  to  give  a  sketch  of  the  person- 
ages who  were  spoken  of  in  the  neighborhood  as  belonging  to 
the  "best  society  of  Soulanges." 

The  oddest  figure  among  them  all  was,  as  you  may  imagine, 
Mme.  Soudry  herself.  Hers  is  a  portrait  that  demands  an 
infinity  of  minute  touches,  if  it  is  to  do  justice  to  the  original. 

Mme.   Soudry  permitted  herself  "a  suspicion  of  rouge," 


THE  PEASANTRY.  259 

in  imitation  of  Mile.  Laguerre ;  but  that  suspicion,  by  sheer 
force  of  habit,  had  become  an  unmistakable  patch  of  vermilion 
on  either  cheek,  such  as  our  grandsires  picturesquely  described 
as  "carriage  wheels."  As  the  wrinkles  deepened  and  multi- 
plied on  the  mayoress'  countenance,  she  vainly  tried  to  fill 
them  up  with  paint ;  then  finding  that  her  brow  grew  too 
sallow  by  far,  and  her  temples  showed  time's  polish,  she  laid 
on  ceruse,*  and  traced  out  a  network  of  youthful  veins  in  a 
delicate  blue.  The  painting  enhanced  the  liveliness  of  eyes 
that  were  bold  enough  already,  insomuch  that  the  mask  would 
have  struck  a  stranger  as  something  passing  strange ;  but  Sou- 
langes,  being  accustomed  to  this  brilliant  display  of  art,  re- 
garded Mme.  Soudry  as  a  great  beauty. 

With  a  clumsy  shapeless  figure  she  wore  her  gowns  cut  low 
at  the  throat,  displaying  shoulders  and  bosom  whitened  and 
enameled  to  match  her  face  ;  but,  luckily,  a  desire  to  flaunt 
her  magnificent  laces  induced  her  to  partially  veil  these  chemi- 
cal products.  She  always  wore  a  stiff  corset  bodice  of  pro- 
digious depth,  bedizened  with  knots  even  down  to  the  extreme 
point,  and  her  skirts  rustled  with  silk  and  furbelows. 

Her  apparel  justified  the  use  of  the  word  attire,  which  will 
soon  be  inexplicable.  This  evening  she  wore  brocade  of 
price,  for  she  had  a  hundred  dresses,  each  one  richer  than  the 
last,  all  from  Mile.  Lauguerre's  vast  and  splendid  wardrobe, 
and  all  remodeled  by  her  in  the  height  of  the  fashion  of  the 
year  1808.  Mine.  Soudry 's  gorgeous  cap,  adorned  with  loons 
of  cherry-colored  satin  to  match  the  ribbons  on  her  gown, 
seemed  to  ride  triumphant  on  the  powdered  waves  of  her 
yellow  wig. 

Try  to  imagine  beneath  that  too  fascinating  headgear  a 
monkey  face  of  monstrous  ugliness ;  a  snub  nose,  meagre 
enough  for  a  death's  head,  separated  by  a  broad  space  of 
bristles  from  a  mouthful  of  artificial  teeth  in  which  the  sounds 
were  entangled  as  in  a  hunting-horn — and  though  it  may 

*  A  cosmetic  prepared  with  white  lead. 


260  THE  PEASANTRY. 

puzzle  you  to  discover  how  the  best  society,  and,  in  fact,  the 
whole  town  of  Soulanges,  could  regard  Mme.  Soudry  as  a 
beauty,  the  mental  process  may  recall  to  your  mind  a  recent 
succinct  treatise  ex  professo  by  one  of  the  wittiest  women  of 
our  day  on  the  art  of  acquiring  a  reputation  for  beauty  by  the 
judicious  selection  and  management  of  accessories. 

Mme.  Soudry  had,  in  the  first  place,  surrounded  herself  with 
the  splendid  presents  which  had  been  heaped  upon  her  mis- 
tress— spoils  of  war,  as  the  sometime  Benedictine  called  them. 
And,  in  the  second,  she  had  turned  her  ugliness  to  account  by 
emphasizing  it  and  carrying  it  with  a  certain  air  which  can 
only  be  acquired  in  Paris,  a  knack  known  to  the  vulgarest 
Parisienne,  who  is  always  more  or  less  of  a  mimic.  Mme. 
Soudry's  figure,  much  restricted  round  the  waist,  was  enormous 
about  the  hips  ;  she  wore  diamonds  in  her  ears  and  loaded  her 
fingers  with  rings ;  and,  by  way  of  final  adornment,  a  cock- 
chafer, twin  topazes  with  a  diamond  head,  blazed  from  the 
height  of  her  bodice  in  a  cleft  between  two  mountains  be- 
sprinkled with  pearl  powder.  This  jewel,  a  gift  from  "  dear 
mistress,"  was  the  talk  of  the  department.  Mme.  Soudry's 
arms  were  invariably  bare  (another  practice  copied  from  Mile. 
Laguerre),  and  she  fluttered  an  ivory  fan  painted  by  Boucher 
with  two  tiny  roses  by  way  of  stud-pins. 

When  Mme.  Soudry  walked  abroad  she  carried  a  real 
eighteenth-century  parasol  above  her  head,  a  bamboo  frame 
covered  with  green  silk,  and  bordered  with  a  green  fringe ; 
thus  equipped,  any  passer-by  who  should  have  seen  her  on  the 
terrace  might  have  taken  her  (at  a  sufficient  distance)  for  a 
figure  out  of  one  of  Watteau's*  pictures. 

In  that  drawing-room,  hung  with  crimson  brocade  and  crim- 
son curtains  lined  with  white  silk,  where  the  mantel  was 
covered  with  knick-knacks  and  souvenirs  of  the  palmy  days  of 
Louis  XV.,  with  the  fire-dogs  and  andirons  on  the  hearth  (lily 
stems  borne  aloft  by  infant  Cupids),  where  the  furniture,  a 

*  Noted  for  his  "  shepherdess  "  paintings. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  261 

pieds  de  biche,*  was  covered  with  gilding,  it  was  conceivable 
how  the  mistress  of  the  mansion  had  come  by  the  title  of  "the 
beautiful  Mme.  Soudry."  The  house  came  to  be  a  kind  of 
local  superstition  in  the  principal  town  in  the  district. 

And  if  the  best  society  of  Soulanges  believed  in  its  queen, 
that  queen  had  no  less  belief  in  herself.  In  the  space  of  seven 
years  La  Cochet  had  so  completely  succeeded  in  sinking  the 
lady's-maid  in  the  mayoress,  that  not  merely  had  Soulanges 
forgotten  her  late  employment,  but  she  herself  had  begun  to 
believe  that  she  was  a  gentlewoman.  So  well  did  she  remember 
her  mistress'  ways,  her  manner,  her  gestures,  her  falsetto  voice, 
the  little  movements  of  her  head,  that  when  she  surrounded 
herself  with  that  mistress'  opulence  she  reproduced  her  inso- 
lence. Mme.  Soudry  knew  her  eighteenth  century  ;  she  had 
anecdotes  of  great  nobles,  like  their  inter-relationships,  at  her 
fingers'  ends,  and  her  back-stairs  erudition  provided  her  with 
a  stock  of  conversation  which  smacked  of  familiarity  with  (Eil- 
de-ba>uf  (lit.:  ox-eye,  really  meaning  a  round  keyhole-worn 
eye).  Her  waiting-woman's  small-talk  passed  current  in  her 
circle  for  the  most  refined  wit.  Intrinsically,  if  you  will,  the 
mayoress  was  a  counterfeit  gem ;  but  how  should  barbarians 
know  the  difference  between  the  diamond  and  its  paste  imi- 
tation ? 

She,  too,  in  her  own  circle,  was  a  divinity,  as  her  mistress 
had  been  in  her  day ;  she  was  flattered  by  those  who  were  sure 
of  a  dinner  at  her  house  once  a  week,  and  of  coffee  and  liqueurs 
if  (as  not  seldom  happened)  they  dropped  in  of  an  evening 
about  the  time  of  dessert.  No  woman's  head  could  have 
stood  the  powerfully  intoxicating  influence  of  that  never-failing 
incense.  In  the  winter-time,  when  the  cozy  drawing-room 
was  bright  with  the  light  of  wax-candles,  she  saw  it  filled  with 
the  wealthiest  men  in  the  place,  who  repaid  her  in  compli- 
ments for  delicate  liqueurs  and  exquisite  wines  from  "  dear 

*  On  the  iron  bar  across  the  fire-grate  which  supports  the  cooking 
utensils. 


262  THE  PEASANTRY. 

mistress*  "  cellars.  The  friends  of  the  house  and  their  wives 
had,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  usufruct  of  this  luxury, 
while  they  economized  in  fuel  and  candle-light.  For  which 
reasons  it  was  proclaimed  for  five  leagues  round  about,  nay,  at 
Ville-aux-Fayes  itself,  when  the  notables  of  the  department 
were  passed  in  review,  that  "  Mme.  Soudry  makes  an  admirable 
hostess ;  she  keeps  open  house,  and  it  is  a  wonderfully  pleasant 
place.  She  understands  how  to  live  up  to  her  fortune.  She 
can  enjoy  a  joke.  And  what  handsome  plate  !  There  is  not 
such  another  house  out  of  Paris  !  " 

Bouret  had  given  that  plate  to  Mile.  Laguerre.  It  was  a 
splendid  service,  the  work  of  the  great  Germain,  and,  in  plain 
language,  La  Soudry  had  stolen  it ;  when  Mile.  Laguerre  died, 
the  woman  simply  took  it  up  to  her  own  room,  and  the  next- 
of-kin,  who  knew  nothing  about  their  property,  could  never 
put  in  a  claim  for  missing  items. 

For  some  little  time  it  had  been  the  fashion  among  the 
twelve  or  fifteen  persons  of  whom  the  "best  society"  in 
Soulanges  was  composed  to  speak  of  Mme.  Soudry  as  of  an 
"  intimate  friend  of  Mile.  Laguerre,"  and  to  fight  shy  of  the 
word  "waiting-woman."  To  hear  them  talk,  La  Cochet 
might  have  sacrificed  herself  by  becoming  the  great  actress' 
companion. 

Strange,  but  true  it  is,  that  all  these  confirmed  illusions 
spread  and  grew  in  Madame  Soudry,  till  they  invaded  the 
reality-requiring  region  of  the  heart.  She  ruled  her  husband 
despotically. 

The  gendarme  being  constrained  to  show  fondness  for  a 
wife,  older  than  himself  by  ten  years,  who  kept  the  purse- 
strings  in  her  own  hands,  encouraged  her  in  the  notions  which 
she  entertained  of  her  beauty.  Nevertheless,  at  times,  when 
this  one  or  that  envied  him  his  good  fortune,  he  would  wish 
that  they  could  exchange  places  with  him;  and  he  was  at  as 
great  pains  to  hide  his  peccadilloes  as  if  a  young  and  idolized 
wife  were  in  the  case.  Only  within  the  last  few  days  had  he 


THE  PEASANTRY.  263 

contrived  to  introduce  a  pretty  housemaid  into  the  establish- 
ment. 

Does  the  portrait  of  the  queen  of  Soulanges  seem  to  be 
something  of  a  caricature  ?  The  type  might  still  be  found  here 
and  there  in  the  provinces  in  those  days,  among  women  on 
the  outskirts  of  nobility  or  the  higher  regions  of  finance ;  wit- 
ness the  widow  of  a  farmer-general  in  Touraine,  who  still  ap- 
plied fillets  of  veal  to  her  face  in  the  interests  of  her  com- 
plexion. But  the  present  portrait,  painted  to  the  life  though 
it  is,  is  incomplete  without  its  setting  of  brilliants,  and  the 
queen's  principal  courtiers  must  be  sketched,  were  it  only  to 
explain  how  formidable  such  Lilliputians  may  become,  and  to 
throw  light  upon  the  dissemination  of  opinion  in  out-of-the- 
way  places. 

Lest  any  should  be  deceived,  it  may  be  said  that  there  are 
places  like  Soulanges  which  cannot  be  described  as  either 
city,  town,  or  village,  yet  partake  of  the  nature  of  all  three. 
In  such  places  the  faces  of  the  people  are  quite  different  from 
those  which  you  shall  see  in  the  heart  of  our  good,  overgrown, 
dirty  provincial  cities  ;  for  the  townsman  is  half  a  countryman, 
and  this  blend  produces  some  of  the  queerest  of  queer  characters. 

Mme.  Soudry  disposed  of,  Notary  Lupin,  steward  of  the 
manor  of  Soulanges,  ranks  second  in  importance ;  for  it  is 
scarcely  worth  while  to  mention  old  Gendrin-Vattebled,  the 
crown  agent  of  woods  and  forests,  a  nonagenarian  on  the 
brink  of  the  grave,  who  had  never  left  his  house  since  the 
advent  of  Mme.  Soudry.  Gendrin-Vattebled  had  reigned  over 
Soulanges  in  his  quality  of  a  man  who  had  held  the  same  post 
since  the  time  of  Louis  XV.,  and  in  his  lucid  intervals  he  still 
spoke  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Tables  des  Marbre  (Tables  of 
stone). 

Five-and-forty  springs  had  bloomed  for  Lupin,  but  he  was 
still  fresh  and  pink-complexioned,  thanks  to  the  full  habit  of 
body  which  grows  inevitably  upon  a  man  of  sedentary  life; 
he  still  sang  his  ballad,  and  wore  the  elegant  costume  of  the 


264  THE  PEASANTRY. 

drawing-room  performer.  In  his  carefully  varnished  shoes 
and  vest  of  brimstone-yellow,  his  tight  coats,  rich  silk  stocks, 
and  trousers  in  the  latest  fashion,  Lupin  looked  almost  like  a 
Parisian.  He  had  his  hair  curled  by  the  hairdresser,  who  ful- 
filled the  functions  of  the  "Gazette"  in  Soulanges,  and 
altogether  lived  up  to  the  character  of  lady-killer,  earned  by 
an  intimacy  with  Mme.  Money-Sarcus ;  for,  to  compare  small 
things  with  great,  that  conquest  had  been  in  his  life  pretty 
much  what  the  Campaigns  of  Italy  were  in  the  career  of  Na- 
poleon. Lupin  was  the  only  one  of  the  circle  who  went  to 
Paris,  where  he  paid  visits  to  the  Soulanges  family  in  town. 
He  had  only  to  open  his  mouth,  and  the  supremacy  of  his 
sway  exercised  in  his  double  character  of  coxcomb  and  man- 
of-taste  was  at  once  apparent.  He  pronounced  judgment  on 
all  things  by  three  words,  the  positive,  comparative,  and 
superlative  of  dispraise — rusty,  out-of-date,  and  obsolete. 

A  man  or  a  woman  or  a  piece  of  furniture  might  be 
"rusty;  "  then,  to  mark  the  comparative  degree  of  futility, 
"out-of-date;"  and  finally,  by  way  of  superlative  and  third 
term,  "obsolete."  Obsolete!  'twas  the  critic's  "  dead-and- 
done-with,"  the  domdaniel  of  contempt.  Mere  "rust" 
might  be  rubbed  off;  "out-of-date"  was  past  praying  for; 
but  "obsolete  /"  oh,  better  never  to  have  issued  from  nothing- 
ness ! 

For  praise,  Lupin  was  reduced  to  the  word  "charming," 
redoubled  if  required.  "  Charming  !  " — that  was  the  positive 
term  of  admiration.  "Charming!  charming!" — you  might 
set  your  mind  at  rest.  "  Charming !  charming  !  charming  !  " 
— you  might  throw  down  the  ladder,  for  the  heaven  of  perfec- 
tion had  been  scaled. 

This  scrivener — he  was  wont  to  speak  of  himself  as  the 
scrivener,  quill-driver,  and  petty  attorney,  jestingly  putting 
himself  above  his  calling — this  scrivener  carried  on  a  flirta- 
tion with  the  mayoress,  who  felt  a  certain  weakness  for  Lupin, 
although  he  had  fair  hair  and  wore  spectacles,  and  La  Cochet 


THE  PEASANTRY.  265 

had  always  admired  dark  men  with  mustaches,  and  tufts 
upon  their  finger-joints — the  Hercules  type,  in  short.  But 
now  she  made  an  exception  in  Lupin's  favor,  on  account  of 
his  elegance,  feeling,  beside,  that  her  social  triumph  in  Sou- 
langes  would  be  incomplete  without  an  adorer ;  though  as  yet, 
to  Soudry's  disgust,  none  of  the  queen's  adorers  had  dared  to 
overstep  the  limits  of  respectful  homage. 

Lupin  was  a  baritone,  somewhat  given  to  sample-singing  in 
corners  or  upon  the  terrace,  by  way  of  reminding  the  world 
of  his  social  gift,  a  reef  upon  which  the  socially-gifted  and, 
alas !  sometimes  even  men  of  genius  are  apt  to  make  ship- 
wreck. 

He  had  married  an  heiress  in  sabots  and  blue  stockings,  the 
only  daughter  of  a  salt  merchant  who  made  his  fortune  during 
the  Revolution,  when  the  reaction  against  the  gabelle  (salt 
duties)  put  enormous  sums  into  the  pockets  of  salt  smugglers. 
Lupin  prudemly  kept  his  wife  in  the  background,  and  Bebelle 
was  sustained  by  a  platonic  passion  for  his  very  handsome 
head-clerk,  one  Bonnac,  who  had  nothing  but  his  salary,  and 
played  upon  a  lower  stage  the  part  taken  by  his  employer  in 
the  "best  society." 

Madame  Lupin's  education  had  been  prodigiously  neglected. 
She  only  appeared  in  public  on  state  occasions,  in  the  form  of 
an  enormous  tun  of  Burgundy  draped  with  velvet,  and  sur- 
mounted by  a  little  head  deeply  sunk  in  a  pair  of  shoulders  of 
uncertain  hue.  By  no  effort  could  her  girdle  be  induced  to 
stay  in  its  natural  place,  and  Bebelle  candidly  admitted  that 
prudence  forbade  her  to  wear  corsets.  It  would  have  out- 
tasked  the  imagination  of  a  poet,  nay,  of  an  inventor,  to  dis- 
cover in  Bebelle's  back  any  trace  of  the  bewitching  curves  of 
the  vertebral  outline  of  any  woman  who  is  a  woman. 

Bebelle,  as  round  as  a  tortoise,  belonged  to  some  inverte- 
brate feminine  order.  Her  appalling  development  of  cellular 
tissue  must,  however,  have  been  not  a  little  reassuring  for 
Lupin  whenever  he  thought  of  the  portly  Bebelie's  little  fancy 


266  THE  PEASANTRY. 

— for  "  Bebelle  "  he  unblushingly  called  her,  and  nobody 
thought  of  laughing. 

"What  do  you  call  your  wife?"  Money-Sarcus  inquired 
one  day.  He  could  not  digest  the  "out-of-date  "  applied  to 
a  new  piece  of  furniture  which  he  had  bought  as  a  bargain. 

"  My  wife,  unlike  yours,  is  still  undefined,"  retorted  Lupin. 

A  subtle  brain  lurked  beneath  Lupin's  coarse  exterior  ;  he 
had  the  sense  to  hold  his  tongue  about  wealth  at  least  as  con- 
siderable as  Rigou's  fortune. 

"Young  Lupin,"  Amaury  Lupin,  was  an  affliction  to  his 
parent.  He  refused  to  follow  the  paternal  calling,  he  became 
one  of  the  Don  Juans  of  the  valley,  and  abused  the  privileges 
of  an  only  son  by  enormous  drains  on  the  cash-box ;  yet  he 
never  exceeded  his  father's  indulgence,  for  after  each  fresh 
escapade  Lupin  senior  remarked,  "After  all,  I  was  just  the 
same  in  my  time."  Amaury  never  went  near  Mme.  Soudry, 
who  "plagued  him"  (sic).  Some  memory  had  inspired  the 
waiting-woman  with  the  notion  of  "  forming  "  a  young  man 
who  sought  his  pleasures  in  the  billiard-room  at  the  Cafe  of 
Peace.  Amaury  Lupin  frequented  low  company,  and  even 
the  society  of  such  as  Bonnebault.  He  was  having  his  fling 
(as  Mme.  Soudry  put  it),  and  his  one  answer  to  his  father's 
remonstrances  was  the  cry  of  "  Send  me  to  Paris,  I  am  tired 
of  this!" 

Lupin's  fate,  alas  !  was  that  of  most  bucks,  a  quasi-conjugal 
entanglement.  It  was  well  known  that  he  was  passionately 
attached  to  Mme.  Euphemie  Plissoud,  whose  husband  was 
Brunei's  fellow-clerk  of  the  peace,  and  that  he  had  no  secret? 
from  her.  The  fair  Euphemie,  the  daughter  of  Wattebled 
the  grocer,  reigned,  like  Mme.  Soudry,  in  a  lower  social 
sphere.  Plissoud,  who  was  understood  to  authorize  his  wife's 
conduct,  was  despised  on  this  account  by  the  "  best  society," 
and  regarded  as  second-rate. 

If  Lupin  was  the  vocalist,  Dr.  Gourdon  was  the  man  of 
science  in  the  "  best  society."  It  was  said  of  him  that :  "  We 


THE  PEASANTRY.  267 

have  here  a  man  of  science  of  the  first  rank;"  and  Mme. 
Soudry,  a  competent  critic  in  matters  musical  (in  that  she  had 
announced  Messieurs  Gluck  and  Piccini  when  they  came  to 
call  of  a  morning  upon  her  mistress,  and  had  dressed  Mile. 
Laguerre  at  the  opera  at  night) — Mme.  Soudry,  who  had  per- 
suaded every  one,  including  Lupin  himself,  that  he  would 
have  made  a  fortune  with  that  voice,  would  deplore  the  fact 
that  the  doctor  had  given  none  of  his  ideas  to  the  world. 

Dr.  Gourdon,  who  took  all  his  ideas  straight  from  Buffon 
and  Cuvier,  could  scarcely  have  set  himself  up  for  a  man  of 
science  in  the  eyes  of  Soulanges  with  such  an  outfit,  but  he 
was  making  a  collection  of  shells  and  a  hortus  siccus  (collec- 
tion of  dried  plants),  and  could  stuff  birds  to  boot — in  fact, 
he  coveted  the  distinction  of  leaving  a  Natural  History  Mu- 
seum to  the  town,  and  on  these  grounds  he  was  accepted  all 
over  the  department  as  a  second  Buffon. 

In  appearance  Dr.  Gourdon  was  not  unlike  a  Genevese 
banker.  He  had  the  same  air  of  pedantry,  the  same  chilly 
manner  and  puritanical  neatness ;  but  in  his  case  the  money, 
like  the  business  shrewdness,  had  been  omitted.  He  was 
wont  to  exhibit  with  exceeding  complacency  his  famous  natural 
history  collection,  comprising  a  stuffed  bear  and  a  marmot 
(deceased  on  their  passage  through  the  town),  a  very  complete 
collection  of  the  local  rodents  :  shrew-mice,  field-mice,  house- 
mice,  rats,  and  the  like,  together  with  all  the  rare  birds  shot 
in  that  part  of  Burgundy,  and  conspicuous  among  these  last 
an  Alpine  eagle  caught  among  the  Jura.  Gourdon  also  pos- 
sessed a  good  many  specimens  of  lepidoptera — a  word  which 
raised  hopes  of  monstrosities,  so  that  the  reality  was  usually 
greeted  with:  "Why,  they  are  butterflies!" — a  very  pretty 
collection  of  fossil  shells,  which  for  the  most  part  had  come 
to  him  by  way  of  bequest  ;  and,  to  conclude  the  list,  a  quan- 
tity of  specimens  of  the  minerals  of  the  Jura  and  Burgundy. 

The  whole  second  floor  of  Dr.  Gourdon's  house  was  occu- 
pied by  these  treasures  which  were  established  behind  glass 


268  THE  PEASANTRY. 

doors  in  cupboards,  above  rows  of  drawers  full  of  insects. 
Nor  did  they  fail  to  produce  a  certain  impression,  due  partly 
to  the  eccentricities  of  the  labels,  partly  to  the  magic  charm 
of  color,  and  partly  also  to  the  vast  number  of  objects  which 
no  one  notices  out  of  doors,  though  they  become  wonderful  as 
soon  as  they  are  set  behind  a  sheet  of  glass.  There  was  a  day 
set  apart  for  going  to  see  Dr.  Gourdon's  collection. 

"I  have  five  hundred  ornithological  specimens,"  he  would 
announce  to  the  curious,  "  two  hundred  mammals,  five  thou- 
sand insects,  three  thousand  shells,  and  seven  hundred  specimen 
minerals." 

"  What  patience  you  must  have  had  !  "  the  ladies  would  ex- 
claim, and  Gourdon  would  reply,  "A  man  ought  to  do  some- 
thing for  his  native  place." 

Gourdon's  vanity  drew  a  prodigious  toll  from  his  dead  beasts 
and  birds  by  the  remark,  "  All  this  has  been  left  to  the  town 
in  my  will;"  and  how  his  visitors  admired  his  "philan- 
thropy !  "  They  talked  of  devoting  the  whole  second  floor  of 
the  town  hall  (after  the  doctor's  death)  to  the  housing  of  the 
Gourdon  Museum. 

"  I  count  on  the  gratitude  of  my  fellow-townsmen  to  asso- 
ciate my  name  with  my  collection,"  he  would  say  in  reply  to 
this  suggestion,  "  for  I  do  not  dare  to  hope  that  they  will  set 
my  bust  there  in  marble " 

"  Why,  surely  that  would  be  the  least  that  they  could  do 
for  you  !  "  would  be  the  answer ;  "  are  you  not  the  glory  of 
Soulanges?"  And  in  the  end  the  man  came  to  look  upon 
himself  as  one  of  the  great  men  of  Burgundy. 

The  safest  investments  are  not  the  public  funds,  but  those 
which  are  inscribed  in  the  name  of  self-love,  and  the  learned 
naturalist,  on  Lupin's  grammatical  system,  might  be  described 
as  a  "happy,  happy,  happy  man  !  " 

Gourdon,  his  brother,  the  registrar  of  the  court,  was  a  little 
ferret-faced  man.  All  his  features  seemed  to  have  crowded 
themselves  together  in  the  neighborhood  of  his  neck,  in  such 


THE  PEASANTRY.  269 

a  sort  that  his  nose  was  a  kind  of  starting-point  whence  the 
various  lines  of  forehead,  cheek,  and  mouth  went  their  various 
ways,  much  as  all  the  ravines  on  a  mountain  side  begin  at  its 
summit.  He  was  one  of  the  great  poets  of  Burgundy,  a  second 
Piron,  so  it  was  said.  The  double  merit  of  the  brothers  at- 
tracted notice  in  the  chief  town  of  the  department. 

"  We  have  the  two  brothers  Gourdon  at  Soulanges,"  it  was 
said;  "  two  very  remarkable  men,  men  who  would  more  than 
hold  their  own  in  Paris." 

The  poet  was  an  exceedingly  dexterous  player  at  cup-and- 
ball,  a  mania  which  bred  another  mania,  for  it  inspired  him 
with  the  idea  of  celebrating  in  verse  a  game  which  had  so  great 
a  vogue  in  the  eighteenth  century.  (The  manias  of  Medioc- 
racy  are  apt  to  appear  in  pairs.)  Gourdon  junior  was  de- 
livered of  his  poem  during  the  time  of  Napoleon,  so  it  is  need- 
less to  mention  the  sound  and  sensible  school  to  which  he 
belonged.  Luce  de  Lancival,  Parny,  Saint-Lambert,  Roucher, 
Vigee,  Andrieux,  and  Berchoux  were  his  heroes,  and  Delille 
was  his  idol  until  the  day  when  the  best  society  in  Soulanges 
raised  the  question  whether  Gourdon  did  not  surpass  Delille. 
From  that  time  forth  the  registrar  spoke  of  his  model  as 
"Monsieur  1'Abbe  Delille"  with  unnecessary  courtesy. 

Poems  achieved  between  the  years  1780  and  1814  were  all 
modeled  on  the  same  pattern ;  and  the  great  poem  on  the 
bilboqitct,  or  cup-and-ball,  may  be  taken  as  a  representative 
specimen.  Boileau's  "Lutrin"  is  the  Saturn  of  a  whole 
abortive  progeny  of  playful  pieces,  most  of  them  limited  to 
four  cantos,  for  it  was  generally  recognized  that  the  subject- 
matter  was  apt  to  grow  thin  in  six. 

Gourdon's  poem  on  the  cup-and-ball — the  Bilboqueide — 
obeyed  the  rules  of  poetical  composition  invariably  observed 
in  such  cases,  for  all  these  departmental  compositions  are 
made  from  the  same  pattern.  The  first  canto  describes  the 
subject  of  the  poem,  and  begins,  like  Gourdon's  effort,  with 
an  invocation  much  on  this  wise : 


270  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  I  sing  the  Sport  which  suits  with  every  Age 
The  Small  and  Great,  the  Simple  and  the  Sage; 
When  our  deft  Hand  the  boxwood  Spike  extends 
To  catch  the  transpierced  Globe  as  it  descends, 
Delightful  Pastime,  sovran  cure  for  Spleen, 
If  Palamedes  had  this  Toy  foreseen, 
How  had  he  longed  another  Wreath  to  claim, 
And  envied  us  the  invention  of  the  Game ! 
Muse  of  the  Loves  of  Laughter  and  of  Glee, 
Descend  upon  my  roof  and  visit  me, 
A  votary  of  Themis  striving  still 
Official  paper  with  my  Rhymes  to  fill, 
Descend  and  charm."     .     . 

Then  followed  a  description  of  the  game  itself,  and  of  the 
most  elegant  bilboquets  known  to  history,  an  account  of  the 
part  they  played  in  the  prosperity  of  the  Green  Monkey  and 
other  toystores,  a  digression  touching  statistics  in  this  con- 
nection, and  finally  Gourdon  brought  his  first  canto  to  an  end 
with  three  lines  which  recall  the  conclusion  of  every  similar 
production — 

"  Thus  do  the  Arts,  nay,  even  Science's  self, 
Taking  the  Object  into  their  employ, 
Turn  to  their  profit  Pleasure's  trifling  Toy." 

The  second  canto  (as  usual)  described  divers  manners  of 
using  the  "object"  and  the  ways  in  which  it  might  serve  its 
owner  in  society  and  with  the  fair  sex.  It  will  suffice  to 
quote  a  single  passage  in  which  the  player  goes  through  his 
exercises  beneath  the  eyes  of  the  "  beloved  object,"  and  the 
rest  may  be  left  to  the  imaginations  of  amateurs  of  this 
serious  literature — 

"  Watch  yonder  Player  'mid  the  gazers  all, 
His  eye  fixed  fondly  on  the  iv'ry  Ball, 
How  needfully  he  spies  with  caution  nice 
Its  Movement  in  parabola  precise. 
Thrice  has  the  Globe  described  its  curve  complete, 
He  lays  his  Triumph  at  his  Idol's  feet, 


THE  PEASANTRY.  271 

When  lo ! — the  Disc  its  destiny  has  missed, 

And  hits  the  careless  Player  on  the  fist ! 

He  lifts  his  martyred  digits  to  his  lips, 

A  flying  Kiss  consoles  his  Finger-tips. 

How  canst  thou,  Ingrate,  of  thy  luck  complain? 

A  smile  o'erpays  thee  for  the  trifling  pain." 

It  was  this  piece  of  description  (worthy  of  Virgil)  which 
raised  the  question  whether  Gourdon  had  not  surpassed  Delille. 
The  matter-of-fact  Brunei  objected  to  the  word  disc,  which  pro- 
vided society  with  matter  for  discussion  during  the  best  part 
of  a  twelvemonth.  But  one  evening,  when  both  sides  had 
argued  themselves  red  in  the  face,  Dr.  Gourdon,  the  man  of 
science,  completely  crushed  the  antidisc-itcs. 

"The  moon,"  said  he,  "styled  a  'disc'  by  the  poets,  is  a 
globe." 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  "  retorted  Brunet.  "  We  have  never 
seen  the  other  side  of  it." 

The  third  canto  contained  the  inevitable  anecdote,  a  story 
of  a  famous  minister  of  Louis  XVI. ,  which  everbody  knows 
by  heart ;  but,  to  quote  the  formula  hallowed  by  constant  use 
in  the  "  Debats  "  between  1810  and  1814,  "it  had  borrowed 
novel  graces  from  poesy  and  from  the  charm  which  the  author 
had  infused  into  his  verse." 

The  fourth  canto,  which  summed  up  the  work,  concluded 
with  the  following  audacious  lines  of  the  kind  written  for 
private  circulation  from  1810  to  1814;  lines  which  first  saw 
the  light  in  1824,  after  the  death  of  Napoleon: 

"  Thus  have  I  dared  to  sing  'mid  War's  alarms, 
Ah  !  would  that  Monarchs  bore  no  other  Arms, 
Ah  !  would  that  Nations  in  their  Hours  of  ease 
Beguiled  the  time  with  Pleasures  such  as  these ! 
To  Burgundy,  too  long,  alas !  forlorn, 
Saturn's  and  Rhea's  days  again  were  born." 

These  elegant  verses  were  incorporated  in  the  first  and  only 


272  THE  PEASANTRY. 

edition,  the  editio  princeps,  which  issued  from  the  press  of 
Bournier,  the  printer  at  Ville-aux-Fayes. 

One  hundred  subscribers,  by  an  offering  of  three  francs 
apiece,  insured  immortality  to  the  poem,  and  established  a 
dangerous  precedent;  and  this  was  the  more  handsome  of 
them,  for  that  every  one  of  the  subscribers  had  heard  every 
line  of  the  verses  a  hundred  times. 

Mme.  Soudry  had  but  recently  suppressed  the  cup-and-ball 
which  used  to  lie  on  a  console  table  in  her  drawing-room,  a 
pretext  for  frequent  quotations  j  she  found  out  at  last  that  she 
had  a  rival  in  the  toy. 

As  for  the  poet  himself,  who  bragged  of  his  works  in  manu- 
script, it  will  be  a  sufficient  description  of  him  to  record  the 
way  in  which  he  announced  to  the  "best  society"  of  Sou- 
langes  that  a  rival  poet  had  appeared. 

"Have  you  heard  the  strange  news?"  he  had  said  (two 
years  before  the  story  begins).  "  There  is  another  poet  in 
Burgundy.  Yes,"  he  went  on,  seeing  the  astonishment  ex- 
pressed in  all  faces,  "  he  comes  from  Macon.  But  you  would 
never  imagine  what  he  is  at  work  upon.  He  is  putting  the 
clouds  into  rhyme " 

"They  did  very  well,  left  blank"  said  Mons.  Guerbet  the 
punster. 

"  It  is  the  queerest  rigmarole  !  Lakes  and  stars  and  billows  ! 
Not  a  single  rational  image,  not  a  trace  of  didactic  intention ; 
he  is  ignorant  of  the  very  sources  of  poetry.  He  calls  the  sky 
by  its  proper  name ;  he  calls  the  moon,  the  moon,  plump  and 
plain,  instead  of  calling  it  the  '  orb  of  night ! '  See  what 
lengths  you  may  go  by  straining  after  originality!"  cried 
Gourdon  dolorously.  "Poor  young  fellow!  A  born  Bur- 
gundian,  and  he  takes  to  singing  the  praise  of  water,  it  makes 
you  sorry  to  see  it !  If  he  had  but  come  and  consulted  me,  I 
would  have  given  him  the  finest  subject  in  the  world,  a  poem 
on  wine — '  The  Bacchiad  ' — which  I  myself  feel  too  old  to  un- 
dertake now." 


THE  PEASANTRY.  273 

The  great  poet*  is  still  ignorant  of  his  greatest  triumph 
(due,  it  is  true,  to  his  Burgundian  extraction).  He  was  once 
the  talk  of  Soulanges,  where  the  very  names  of  the  modern 
Pleiade  were  unknown. 

Scores  of  Gourdons  lived  and  sang  under  the  Empire,  which 
some  have  blamed,  forsooth,  for  the  neglect  of  letters  !  Turn 
to  your  booksellers'  catalogues,  and  behold  poem  after  poem 
on  the  Turning-lathe,  the  Game  of  Draughts,  Backgammon, 
Geography,  Typography,  Comedy,  and  what  not,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  masterpieces  so  much  cried  up  as  Delille  on  Pity,  Im- 
agination, and  Conversation ;  or  Berchoux  on  Gastronomy, 
Dansomanic,  and  the  like.  Very  probably  in  another  fifty 
years  readers  will  laugh  at  our  thousand  and  one  poems,  mod- 
eled on  the  "Meditations"  and  "  Orientales."  Who  can 
foresee  the  changes  of  taste,  the  caprices  of  fashion,  the  trans- 
formations of  man's  mind  ?  Each  generation  sweeps  away  all 
before  it,  even  down  to  the  traces  of  the  idols  which  it  finds 
upon  its  way ;  each  generation  sets  up  new  gods  to  be  wor- 
shiped and  thrown  down  in  turn  by  the  next. 

Sarcus,  a  nice,  little,  dappled-gray,  elderly  man,  divided 
his  time  between  Themis  and  Flora — which  is  to  say,  between 
the  court  and  his  hothouse.  For  the  past  twelve  years  he  had 
been  meditating  a  book  to  be  entitled  "The  History  of  the 
Institution  of  Justices  of  the  Peace."  The  political  and 
judicial  aspects  of  these  functionaries,  he  was  wont  to  observe, 
had  already  undergone  several  changes.  Justices  of  the  peace 
existed  in  virtue  of  the  Code  of  Brumaire  of  the  year  IV., f 
but  an  office  so  important,  so  invaluable  to  the  country,  had 
lost  its  prestige,  because  the  emoluments  attached  to  an  ap- 
pointment which  ought  to  be  made  for  life  were  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  the  dignity  of  the  office.  It  was  laid  to  Sarcus' 
charge  that  he  was  a  freethinker ;  and  he  was  considered  to 
be  the  politician  of  the  set,  which,  in  plain  language,  as  you 
will  guess,  means  that  he  was  the  most  tiresome  person  in  it. 

*  Lamartine.  f  Of  the  Republic. 

18 


274  THE  PEASANTRY. 

He  was  said  "to  talk  like  a  book."  Gaubertin  promised 
him  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  but  postponed  fulfill- 
ment until  the  day  when  he  (Gaubertin)  should  succeed 
Leclercq  and  take  his  seat  in  the  Centre  Left. 

Guerbet,  the  local  wit  and  receiver  of  taxes,  was  a  stout, 
heavy  man,  with  a  butter  face,  a  false  toupet  (fore-lock  of  hair), 
and  gold  rings  in  the  ears,  which  lived  in  a  state  of  continual 
friction  with  his  shirt  collar.  Guerbet  dabbled  in  pomology. 
He  prided  himself  on  the  possession  of  the  finest  fruit-trees  in 
the  district ;  he  forced  early  vegetables,  which  appeared  about 
a  month  after  their  advent  in  Paris,  and  grew  the  most  trop- 
ical products  in  his  hotbeds ;  pine-apples,  to  wit,  and  necta- 
rines, and  green  peas ;  and  when  a  pottle  of  strawberries  was 
sold  at  ten  sous  in  Paris,  he  would  bring  Mme.  Soudry  a 
handful  with  no  little  pride. 

In  M.  Vermut,  the  druggist,  Soulanges  possessed  a  chemist 
who  had  a  little  more  right  to  his  title  than  Sarcus  the  states- 
man, or  Lupin  the  singer,  or  Gourdon  senior,  the  man  of  sci- 
ence, or  his  brother  the  poet.  Yet  the  best  society  of  Sou- 
langes held  Vermut  rather  cheap,  and  beyond  that  society  he 
was  not  known  at  all.  Perhaps  the  circle  felt  instinctively 
the  real  superiority  of  the  thinker  among  them  who  never  said 
a  word  and  listened  to  nonsense  with  a  satirical  smile;  so  they 
threw  doubts  on  his  learning,  and  questioned  it  sotto  voce. 
Outside  the  circle  no  one  troubled  their  heads  about  it. 

Vermut  was  the  butt  of  Mme.  Soudry's  salon.  No  society 
is  complete  without  a  victim ;  there  must  be  somebody  to  com- 
passionate, and  banter,  and  patronize,  and  scorn.  In  the 
first  place,  Vermut,  with  his  head  full  of  scientific  problems, 
used  to  come  to  the  house  with  his  cravat  untied  and  his  vest 
unfastened,  and  wore  a  green  jacket,  usually  stained.  Further- 
more, he  was  a  fair  mark  for  jokes  on  account  of  a  countenance 
so  babyish  that  old  Guerbet  used  to  say  that  he  had  taken  it 
from  his  patients.  In  places  behind  the  times  like  Soulanges, 
country  apothecaries  are  still  employed  as  they  used  to  be  in 


THE  PEASANTRY.  275 

the  days  when  Pourceaugnac  fell  a  victim  to  a  practical  joke; 
and  these  respectable  practitioners,  the  better  to  establish  their 
calling,  demand  an  indemnity  of  displacement. 

The  little  man,  endowed  with  the  patience  of  a  chemist, 
could  not  "enjoy"  his  wife,  to  use  a  provincialism  which 
signifies  the  abolition  of  the  marital  rule.  Mme.  Vermut,  a 
charming,  lively  woman,  a  woman  of  spirit  moreover,  who 
could  lose  two  whole  francs  at  cards  without  a  word,  railed  at 
her  spouse,  pursued  him  with  epigrams,  and  held  him  up  for 
an  idiot  only  fit  to  distill  dullness.  She  was  one  of  those 
women  whose  mission  it  is  to  keep  a  little  town  lively ;  she  was 
the  salt  of  this  corner  of  the  earth,  kitchen-salt,  it  is  true,  but 
what  salt  it  was !  She  indulged  in  boisterous  jokes,  but  these 
were  overlooked.  She  thought  nothing  of  telling  M.  Taupin, 
a  white-haired  man  of  seventy,  to  "  shut  up,  monkey  !  " 

The  miller  of  Soulanges  had  fifty  thousand  francs  a  year  and 
an  only  daughter,  whom  Lupin  had  in  his  mind  for  Amaury, 
for  he  had  given  up  all  hope  by  this  time  of  Mile.  Gaubertin, 
and  President  Gaubertin  thought  of  the  same  girl  for  his  own 
son,  the  registrar  of  mortgages.  Here  again  interests  clashed. 
This  miller,  a  Sarcus-Taupin,  was  the  Nucingen  of  the  town. 
He  was  said  to  have  three  million  francs,  but  he  would  not 
join  any  combination.  He  thought  of  nothing  but  his  flour- 
mill  and  of  how  to  get  all  the  trade  into  his  own  hands,  and 
was  chiefly  remarkable  for  the  signal  absence  of  courtesy  or 
civility  in  his  manner. 

Old  Guerbet,  the  brother  of  the  postmaster  at  Conches, 
had  about  ten  thousand  francs  a  year  of  his  own  beside  his 
professional  income.  The  Gourdons  were  well-to-do  men. 
The  doctor  had  married  the  only  daughter  of  the  very  old 
M.  Gendrin-Vattebled,  crown  agent  of  woods  and  forests,  who 
could  not  be  expected  to  last  much  longer ;  while  the  registrar 
had  wedded  the  Abb6  Taupin's  niece  and  sole  heiress.  The 
Abbe  Taupin,  cure  of  Soulanges,  was  a  fat  priest,  ensconced 
in  his  living  like  a  rat  in  a  cheese. 


276  THE  PEASANTRY. 

The  pliant  ecclesiastic  was  very  popular  in  Soulanges ;  he 
was  quite  at  home  in  the  best  society,  kindly  and  good-natured 
with  the  "second-rate,"  and  apostolic  with  the  unfortunate. 
Cousin  to  the  miller,  and  related  to  both  the  Sarcus  families, 
he  belonged  to  the  district,  and  was  part  of  the  system  of 
Mediocracy.  Taupin  was  thrifty,  never  dined  at  home,  went 
to  weddings  and  came  away  before  the  dancing  began,  and 
never  meddled  with  politics ;  he  demanded  and  obtained  out- 
ward conformity  to  the  requirements  of  religion,  urging  his 
pleas  "  in  my  professional  capacity."  And  he  was  allowed  to 
have  his  way.  "  We  have  a  good  cure,"  people  used  to  say 
of  him.  The  bishop,  who  knew  Soulanges  well,  was  not 
deceived  as  to  the  merit  of  the  ecclesiastic ;  but  it  was  some- 
thing to  find  a  man  who  could  induce  such  a  town  to  accept 
the  forms  of  religion,  a  man  who  could  fill  the  church  of  a 
Sunday  and  preach  a  sermon  to  a  slumbering  congregation. 

The  Gourdons'  ladies — -for  at  Soulanges,  as  in  Dresden  and 
some  other  German  capitals,  those  who  move  in  the  best 
society  greet  each  other  with  the  inquiry,  "  How  is  your 
lady?"  and  people  say,  "  He  was  not  there  with  his  lady," 
or  "  I  saw  his  lady  and  the  young  ladies."  A  Parisian  who 
should  say  "  his  wife  "  or  "  womenkind  "  would  create  a  sen- 
sation and  be  set  down  for  a  man  of  the  worst  style.  At 
Soulanges,  as  at  Geneva,  Dresden,  and  Brussels,  these  words 
are  never  used;  Brussels  storekeepers  may  put  "  wife  of  such 
an  one  "  above  their  store-doors,  but  at  Soulanges  "your  good 
lady"  is  the  only  permissible  formula.  To  resume — the 
Gourdons'  ladies  can  only  be  compared  to  the  luckless  super- 
numeraries of  second-rate  theatres  known  to  Parisian  audi- 
ences, who  frequently  take  the  artistes  for  a  laughing-stock  ; 
it  will  suffice  to  say  that  they  belonged  to  the  order  of  "nice 
little  things,"  and  their  portraits  will  be  complete,  for  the 
most  unlettered  bourgeois  can  look  about  him  and  find  ex- 
amples of  these  necessary  beings. 

It  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  remark  that  Guerbet  under- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  277 

stood  finance  admirably  well,  and  that  Soudry  would  have 
made  a  minister  of  war,  for  every  worthy  townsman  was 
equipped  with  the  imagined  specialty  necessary  to  the  exist- 
ence of  a  provincial ;  and  not  only  so,  each  one  was  free  to 
cultivate  his  own  private  plot  in  the  domain  of  human  vanity 
without  fear  of  rivalry  or  disturbance  from  his  neighbor. 

If  Cuvier,  traveling  incognito,  had  passed  through  the 
town,  the  best  society  of  Soulanges  would  have  felt  convinced 
that  his  knowledge  was  a  mere  trifle  compared  with  Dr. 
Gourdon's  scientific  attainments.  Nourrit  and  his  "fine 
thread  of  voice,"  as  the  notary  called  it  with  patronizing 
indulgence,  would  have  been  thought  scarce  worthy  to  accom- 
pany the  nightingale  of  Soulanges ;  and  as  for  the  versifier 
whose  works  were  just  passing  through  Bournier's  press,  it  was 
incredible  that  a  poet  of  equal  merit  should  be  found  in  Paris 
now  that  Delille  was  dead. 

This  provincial  bourgeoisie,  in  its  sleek  self-satisfaction, 
could  take  precedence  of  all  social  superiority.  Only  those 
who  have  spent  some  portion  of  their  lives  in  a  small  country 
town  of  this  kind  can  form  any  idea  of  the  exceeding  com- 
placency which  overspreads  the  countenances  of  these  folk 
who  took  themselves  for  the  cceliac  plexus  of  France.  Gifted 
as  they  were  with  incredible  perverse  ingenuity,  they  had 
decided  in  their  wisdom  that  one  of  the  heroes  of  Essling 
was  a  coward,  Mme.  de  Montcornet  a  woman  of  scandalous 
life,  and  the  Abbe  Brossette  a  petty  intriguer,  and  within  a 
fortnight  of  the  purchase  of  the  Aigues  they  discovered  the 
general's  origin,  and  dubbed  him  the  "Upholsterer." 

If  Rigou,  Soudry,  and  Gaubertin  had  all  of  them  lived  at 
Ville-aux-Fayes,  there  would  have  been  a  quarrel ;  their  pre- 
tensions must  inevitably  have  come  into  collision  ;  but  Fate 
ordained  that  the  Lucullus  of  Blangy  should  feel  that  solitude 
was  a  necessity  if  he  was  to  combine  usury  and  sensuality  in 
peace  ;  while  Mme.  Soudry  had  sense  enough  to  see  that  she 
could  only  reign  in  such  a  place  as  Soulanges,  and  Gaubertin 


278  THE  PEASANTRY. 

found  Ville-aux-Fayes  a  central  position  for  his  business. 
Those  who  find  amusement  in  the  study  of  social  intricacies 
will  admit  that  Montcornet  had  a  run  of  ill  luck  when  he  fell 
among  such  foes,  all  living  sufficiently  far  apart  to  revolve  in 
their  separate  spheres  of  power  and  vanity.  The  malignant 
planets  were  but  ten  times  the  more  potent  for  mischief  be- 
cause they  never  crossed  each  other's  paths. 

Yet,  though  the  worthy  Soulangeois  were  proud  of  their 
leisurely  lives,  and  regarded  their  society  as  distinctly  more 
agreeable  than  that  of  Ville-aux-Fayes,  repeating  with  ludi- 
crous pomposity  that  "  Soulanges  is  the  place  for  pleasure  and 
society"  (a  saying  current  in  the  valley),  it  would  scarcely 
be  prudent  to  suppose  that  Ville-aux-Fayes  admitted  this 
supremacy.  The  Gaubertin  salon  laughed  in  its  sleeve  at  the 
Soudry  salon.  Gaubertin  would  say :  "  Ours  is  a  busy  town, 
a  great  business  place,  and  some  of  us  are  fools  enough  to 
plague  ourselves  with  money-making,"  and  from  his  manner 
it  was  easy  to  discern  a  slight  antagonism  between  the  earth 
and  the  moon.  The  moon  believed  that  she  was  useful  to  the 
earth,  and  the  earth  controlled  the  moon. 

Both  earth  and  moon  lived,  however,  on  terms  of  the  closest 
intimacy.  At  Carnival-tide  the  best  society  of  Soulanges  went 
in  a  body  to  the  four  dances  given  in  turn  by  Gaubertin,  Gen- 
drin,  Leclercq,  and  Soudry  junior,  the  public  prosecutor. 
Every  Sunday  the  public  prosecutor  and  his  wife,  with  M., 
Mme.,  and  Mile.  Elise  Gaubertin,  came  over  to  Soulanges  to 
dine  with  the  Soudrys.  When  the  sub-prefect  was  invited, 
and  the  postmaster,  Guerbet  from  Conches,  came  to  take  pot- 
luck,  Soulanges  beheld  the  spectacle  of  four  official  carriages 
stopping  the  way  before  the  Soudry  mansion. 


THE  PEASAN7RY.  279 

II. 

THE  QUEEN'S  DRAWING-ROOM. 

Rigou  timed  his  arrival  for  half-past  five,  knowing  that  he 
should  find  every  one  at  his  post  at  that  hour.  The  mayor, 
like  everybody  else  in  the  town,  dined  at  three  o'clock,  fol- 
lowing the  eighteenth-century  usage  ;  so  from  five  till  nine  in 
the  evening  the  Soulanges  notables  exchanged  news,  delivered 
political  speeches,  commented  on  all  the  gossip  of  the  valley, 
and  discussed  the  doings  of  the  folk  at  the  Aigues.  This  last 
topic  found  them  in  conversation  for  an  hour  daily.  Every 
one  made  a  point  of  learning  something  on  that  head,  and  it 
was  well  known  beside  that  to  bring  news  of  the  Aigues  was 
a  way  of  recommending  yourself  to  your  host  and  hostess. 

After  this  indispensable  review  of  things  in  general,  the 
company  betook  themselves  to  boston,  the  only  game  which 
the  queen  could  play.  The  stout  old  Guerbert  would  mimic 
Madame  Isaure  (Gaubertin's  wife),  ridiculing  her  finical  airs, 
her  thin  voice,  prim  mouth,  and  missish  manners ;  the  Cure 
Taupin  would  retail  some  bit  of  news  from  Ville-aux-Fayes ; 
Mme.  Soudry  was  saturated  with  fulsome  compliments  ;  and 
then  came  the  final,  "We  have  had  a  delightful  game  of 
boston." 

Rigou  was  too  selfish  to  take  the  trouble  to  come  a  distance 
of  twelve  kilometres  to  hear  the  trash  talked  in  Mme.  Sou- 
dry's  drawing-room,  and  to  see  a  monkey  masquerading  as  an 
elderly  woman.  He  was  greatly  the  superior  of  the  company 
by  ability  and  education,  and  never  showed  himself  in  Sou- 
langes save  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  went  thither  to 
consult  his  notary,  Lupin.  Rigou  was  not  expected  to  be 
neighborly ;  his  habits  and  business  occupations  absolved 
him ;  and  his  health  (he  said)  did  not  permit  him  to  return 


280  THE  PEASANTRY. 

at  night  along  the  road  by  the  river,  when  "  the  damp  was 
rising  "  from  the  Thune. 

The  tall,  gaunt  usurer,  moreover,  overawed  Mme.  Soudry's 
drawing-room.  Instinctively  it  was  felt  that  in  this  man 
there  was  a  tiger  with  claws  of  steel ;  that  the  malignance  of 
a  savage  was  combined  with  the  wisdom  implanted  in  the 
cloister  and  matured  by  the  sun  of  gold,  wisdom  in  which 
Gaubertin  had  never  willingly  trusted. 

Urbain,  Soudry's  man,  sitting  on  a  bench  under  the  dining- 
room  windows,  looked  up  and  saw  the  little  basket-chaise  as 
it  passed  the  Cafe  of  Peace.  He  shaded  his  eyes  to  watch  it, 
while  he  chatted  with  Socquard  the  saloon-keeper. 

"  That  is  old  Rigou  !  The  gate  will  have  to  be  opened. 
You  hold  his  horse,  Socquard,"  he  said  familiarly.  Urbain 
had  been  in  a  cavalry  regiment,  and  when  he  failed  to  obtain 
a  transfer  into  the  gendarmerie  he  took  service  with  Soudry 
instead.  He  now  went  in  to  open  the  great  gate  into  the 
courtyard. 

The  great  Socquard,  as  you  see,  was  paying  an  informal 
call ;  but  so  it  is  with  many  illustrious  personages,  they  con- 
descend to  walk,  and  sneeze,  and  eat,  and  sleep  for  all  the 
world  like  ordinary  mortals. 

Socquard  was  by  birth  a  Hercules.  He  could  carry  eleven 
hundredweight,  he  could  break  a  man's  back  with  one  blow 
of  his  fist,  twist  an  iron  bar,  or  stop  a  cart  with  a  horse  har- 
nessed to  it.  He  was  the  Milo  of  Crotona  of  the  valley,  his 
fame  spread  all  over  the  department,  and  absurd  fables  were 
told  of  him,  as  of  most  celebrities.  It  was  said,  for  instance, 
in  the  Morvan  that  one  day  he  picked  up  a  poor  woman, 
donkey,  and  bundles,  and  all,  and  carried  her  to  market,  that 
he  had  eaten  an  ox  at  a  sitting,  and  drunk  a  quarter-cask  of 
wine  in  a  day,  and  the  like.  Socquard,  a  short,  thickset  man 
with  a  placid  countenance,  was  as  meek  as  any  maid  ;  he  was 
broad  in  the  shoulders  and  deep-chested ;  and,  though  his 
lungs  heaved  like  the  bellows  in  a  smithy,  his  voice  was  so 


THE  PEASANTRY.  281 

thin  and  clear  that  it  startled  any  one  who  heard  it  for  the 
first  time. 

Like  Tonsard,  whose  reputation  for  ferocity  saved  him  the 
trouble  of  giving  proof  of  it,  like  every  man  who  is  hedged 
about  by  a  reputation  of  any  kind,  Socquard  never  displayed 
his  triumphant  powers,  except  at  the  particular  request  and 
prayer  of  his  friends.  Just  now  he  held  the  horse's  head 
while  the  public  prosecutor's  father-in-law  dismounted  and 
turned  to  apply  himself  to  the  flight  of  steps. 

"All  well  at  home,  Monsieur  Rigou?"  inquired  the  illus- 
trious Socquard. 

"  Pretty  well,  old  chap,"  returned  Rigou.  "And  are 
Plissoud  and  Bonnebault,  Viollet,  and  Amaury  still  the  props 
of  your  establishment  ?  " 

This  inquiry,  apparently  prompted  by  a  good-natured  in- 
terest, was  no  random  question  flung  down  by  a  superior  to 
an  inferior.  When  Rigou  had  nothing  else  to  do,  he  thought 
over  every  trifle,  and  Fourchon  had  already  pointed  out  that 
there  was  something  suspicious  in  an  intimacy  between  Bon- 
nebault, Plissoud,  and  Corporal  Viollet. 

For  a  few  francs  lost  at  play,  Bonnebault  was  quite  capable 
of  selling  the  peasants'  secrets  to  the  corporal ;  or  two  or  three 
extra  bowls  of  punch  might  set  him  babbling  when  he  did  not 
know  the  importance  of  his  maudlin  utterances.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  old  otter-hunter's  information  might  have 
been  counseled  by  thirst,  and  Rigou  would  have  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  it  save  for  the  mention  of  Plissoud.  Plissoud  was  in  a 
position  which  might  inspire  him  with  a  notion  of  thwarting 
the  Aigues  conspiracy,  if  it  were  merely  to  make  something 
for  himself  out  of  either  side. 

Plissoud,  the  clerk  of  the  court,  eked  out  his  income  with 
various  unremunerative  occupations ;  he  was  a  life  insurance 
agent  (these  companies  having  just  been  started  in  France), 
agent  likewise  for  a  society  which  insured  against  the  chances 
of  conscription ;  but  an  unfortunate  predilection  for  billiards 


282  THE  PEASANTRY. 

and  spiced  wine  was  the  principal  obstacle  in  his  way  to 
fortune.  Like  Fourchon,  he  cultivated  the  art  of  doing 
nothing,  and  waited  for  a  problematical  fortune  to  turn  up. 
Plissoud  hated  the  "  best  society  "  of  Soulanges  profoundly, 
having  measured  its  power,  and  Plissoud  knew  all  the  ins  and 
outs  of  Gaubertin's  bourgeois  tyranny.  He  scoffed  at  the 
moneyed  men  of  Soulanges  and  Ville-aux-Fayes,  and  repre- 
sented the  Opposition  in  a  minority  of  one.  As  he  had 
neither  cash  nor  credit,  he  scarcely  seemed  to  be  formidable; 
and  Brunet,  only  too  glad  to  have  so  contemptible  a  rival, 
protected  Plissoud  for  fear  that  he  should  sell  his  practice  to 
some  energetic  young  fellow  like  Bonnac,  for  instance,  who 
would  compel  him  to  yield  up  an  equal  share  of  the  business 
of  the  district. 

"  Business  is  all  right,  thanks  to  them,"  answered  Socquard, 
"but  my  spiced  wine  is  being  imitated." 

"You  ought  to  follow  the  matter  up,"  said  Rigou  senten- 
tiously. 

"I  might  be  led  on  too  far,"  said  the  saloon-keeper,  inno- 
cent of  any  jocular  intention. 

"And  do  your  customers  get  on  well  together?  " 

"  There  is  a  row  now  and  again  ;  but  that  is  only  natural 
when  they  play  for  money." 

All  heads  by  this  time  were  looking  out  of  the  drawing- 
room  window ;  Soudry,  seeing  the  father  of  his  daughter-in- 
law,  came  out  upon  the  steps  to  greet  him. 

"Well,  compare"  (boon  companion  or  crony),  cried  the 
ex-sergeant,  using  the  word  in  its  old  sense,  "  is  Annette  ill 
that  you  vouchsafe  your  presence  here  of  an  evening?" 

A  survival  of  the  gendarme  in  the  mayor  prompted  him  to 
go  straight  to  the  point. 

"No,"  said  Rigou,  touching  the  palm  which  Soudry  held 
out  with  his  own  right  forefinger ;  "  there  is  a  row  on,  we 
will  have  a  talk  about  it,  for  our  children  are  concerned " 

Soudry,  a  fine-looking  man,  wore  a  blue  suit  as  though  he 


THE  PEASANTRY.  283 

still  belonged  to  the  force,  and  a  black  stock  and  spurs  to  his 
boots.  He  took  Rigou's  arm  and  led  him  up  to  his  imposing 
better-half. 

The  glass  door  opened  on  to  the  terrace,  where  the  family 
party  were  walking  up  and  down  enjoying  the  summer  even- 
ing. The  imaginative  reader  who  has  read  the  previous 
sketch  can  picture  the  glory  of  the  wonderful  stretch  of 
country  below. 

"It  is  a  very  long  time  since  we  last  saw  you,  my  dear 
Rigou,"  said  Mme.  Soudry,  taking  Rigou's  arm  to  walk  out 
upon  the  terrace. 

"  I  am  so  troubled  with  indigestion,"  said  the  old  money- 
lender. "Just  look  at  me,  my  color  is  almost  as  high  as 
yours." 

Rigou's  appearance  on  the  terrace  was,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, the  signal  for  a  salvo  of  jovial  greetings. 

"  Epicu-rigou  !  I've  found  another  name  for  you  !  "  cried 
the  receiver  of  taxes,  holding  out  a  hand,  in  which  Rigou  in- 
serted a  forefinger. 

"  Not  bad  !  not  bad  !  "  said  Sarcus,  the  little  justice  of  the 
peace ;  "  he  is  a  bit  of  a  glutton  is  our  lord  of  Blangy." 

"Lord  of  Blangy!"  said  Rigou  bitterly;  "I  have  not 
been  the  cock  of  my  village  this  long  while." 

"  That  is  not  what  the  liens  say,  you  rogue  you !  "  said  La 
Soudry,  giving  Rigou  a  playful  little  tap  with  her  fan. 

"Are  we  going  on  well,  my  dear  sir?"  asked  the  notary, 
bowing  to  his  principal  client. 

"Pretty  well,"  said  Rigou,  and  again  he  held  out  a  fore- 
finger for  the  lawyer  to  take. 

This  habit  of  Rigou's,  which  reduced  a  handshake  to  the 
chilliest  of  demonstrations,  was  enough  in  itself  to  depict  the 
man's  whole  character  to  a  stranger. 

"Look  for  a  corner  where  we  can  have  a  quiet  talk,"  said 
the  monk,  singling  out  Lupin  and  Mme.  Soudry  by  a  glance. 

"Let  us  go  back  to  the  drawing-room,"  said  the  queen  of 


284  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Soulanges.     "These  gentlemen,"  she  added,  indicating  Dr 
Gourdon  and  Guerbet,  "  are  having  a  discussion  on  the  Q.  T." 

Mme.  Soudry  had  asked  them  what  they  were  talking  about, 
and  old  Guerbet,  witty  as  ever,  had  replied  that  they  were 
"  having  a  discussion  on  the  Q.  T."  Mme.  Soudry  took  this 
for  some  scientific  expression,  and  repeated  the  word  with  a 
pretentious  air. 

"What  is  the  latest  news  of  the  Upholsterer?"  asked 
Soudry,  and,  sitting  down  beside  his  wife,  he  put  his  arm 
about  her  waist.  Like  most  elderly  women,  La  Soudry  would 
forgive  much  for  a  public  demonstration  of  affection. 

"  Why,  he  has  gone  to  the  prefecture  to  demand  the  en- 
forcement of  the  penalties  and  to  ask  for  support,"  said 
Rigou,  lowering  his  voice  to  set  an  example  of  prudence. 

"It  will  be  the  ruin  of  him,"  said  Lupin,  rubbing  his 
hands.  "  There  will  be  fighting  !  " 

"Fighting!"  repeated  Soudry,  "that  is  as  may  be.  If 
the  prefect  and  the  general,  who  are  friends  of  his,  send  over 
a  squadron  of  horse,  there  will  be  no  fighting.  With  the 
gendarmes  from  Soulanges  they  might,  at  a  pinch,  get  the 
best  of  it ;  but  as  for  trying  to  stand  against  a  charge  of 
cavalry  ! " 

"Sibilet  heard  him  say  something  still  more  dangerous, 
and  that  brings  me  here,"  Rigou  continued. 

"Oh!  my  poor  Sophie!"  cried  Mme.  Soudry,  taking  a 
sentimental  tone,  "  into  what  hands  the  Aigues  has  fallen  ! 
This  is  what  the  Revolution  has  done  for  us ;  it  has  given  silk 
epaulettes  to  low  ruffians  !  Any  one  might  have  known  that 
if  you  turn  a  bottle  upside  down  the  dregs  will  come  to  the 
top  and  spoil  the  wine." 

"  He  means  to  go  to  Paris  and  bring  influence  to  bear  on 
the  keeper  of  the  seals,  so  as  to  make  sweeping  changes  in  the 
court  here." 

"Ah  !  "  said  Lupin,  "  then  he  has  seen  his  danger." 

"If  they  give  my  son-in-law  the  appointment  of  advocate- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  285 

general,  there  is  nothing  to  be  said,  and  the  Upholsterer  will 
replace  him  by  some  Parisian  of  his  own,"  Rigou  continued. 
"  If  he  asks  for  a  seat  in  the  court  for  Monsieur  Gendrin,  and 
has  our  examining  magistrate,  Guerbet,  appointed  to  be  presi- 
dent at  Auxerre,  he  will  knock  down  our  ninepins !  He  has 
the  gendarmerie  for  him  as  it  is ;  if  he  has  the  court  to  boot, 
and  has  counselors  like  the  Abbe  Brossette  and  Michaud  at 
his  side,  we  shall  be  nowhere;  he  might  make  things  very  un- 
pleasant for  us." 

"What!  in  these  five  years  have  you  not  managed  to  rid 
yourselves  of  the  Abbe  Brossette?  "  asked  Lupin. 

"  You  do  not  know  him,"  returned  Rigou  ;  "  he  is  as  sus- 
picious as  a  blackbird.  That  priest  is  not  a  man,  he  never 
looks  at  a  woman  ;  I  cannot  see  that  he  has  any  passion,  he  is 
impregnable.  Now  the  general's  hot  temper  lays  him  open 
to  attack.  A  man  with  a  weakness  is  always  the  servant  of 
his  enemies  when  they  can  use  the  handle  he  gives  them. 
The  really  strong  are  those  who  can  keep  their  vices  well  in 
hand,  and  do  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  mastered  by  them. 
The  peasants  are  all  right,  everything  is  in  working  order, 
but  so  far  we  can  do  nothing  against  the  abbe.  He  is  like 
Michaud.  Such  men  are  too  good  to  live,  the  Almighty 
ought  to  take  them  to  Himself." 

"  We  ought  to  find  them  servant-girls  who  would  put  plenty 
of  soap  on  their  stairs,"  said  Mme.  Soudry.  Rigou  gave  the 
almost  imperceptible  start  which  a  very  crafty  man  makes 
when  he  learns  a  new  stratagem. 

"The  Upholsterer  has  another  weak  side;  he  loves  his 
wife.  We  might  reach  him  in  that  way " 

"Let  us  see,"  said  Mme.  Soudry.  "We  must  see  first  if 
he  carries  out  his  notions." 

"  What  ?  "  cried  Lupin  ;  "  why,  there  is  the  rub  !  " 

"Lupin,"  said  Rigou,  taking  an  authoritative  tone,  <Jjust 
go  to  the  prefecture  and  see  the  fair  Madame  Sarcus  this  very 
evening.  Arrange  matters  with  her  so  that  her  husband  shall 


286  THE  PEASANTRY. 

tell  her  all  that  the  Upholsterer  said  and  did  at  the  prefec- 
ture." 

"I  should  have  to  spend  the  night  there,"  returned  Maitre 
Lupin. 

"So  much  the  better  for  Money-Sarcus,  he  will  be  the 
gainer,"  remarked  Rigou,  "and  Madame  Sarcus  is  not  ex- 
actly 'out-of-date  '  yet." 

"Oh!  Monsieur  Rigou,"  simpered  Mme.  Soudry,  "is  a 
woman  ever  '  out-of-date  ? '  ' 

"  You  are  right  as  far  as  that  one  is  concerned.  She  does 
not  paint  before  the  glass,"  said  Rigou.  The  exhibition  of 
Mme.  Soudry's  antiquated  charms  always  filled  him  with  dis- 
gust. 

Mme.  Soudry,  who  firmly  believed  that  she  only  wore  a 
mere  "  suspicion  "  of  rogue,  did  not  feel  the  sting  of  the  epi- 
gram, and  asked  :  "  Is  it  really  possible  that  there  are  women 
who  paint  themselves?  " 

"As  for  you,  Lupin,"  Rigou  continued,  without  taking  any 
notice  of  this  artless  speech,  "  go  to  see  friend  Gaubertin  to- 
morrow morning  when  you  come  back.  Tell  him  that  I  and 
my  crony  here"  (slapping  Soudry  on  the  thigh)  "will  come 
and  eat  a  crust  with  him,  and  ask  him  for  breakfast  about 
noon.  Let  him  know  how  things  are  going,  so  that  each  of 
us  may  turn  his  ideas  over  in  his  mind,  for  it  is  a  question 
now  of  making  an  end  of  that  accursed  Upholsterer.  As  I 
was  coming  here  to  find  you,  I  said  to  myself  that  we  must  get 
the  Upholsterer  into  some  mess  or  other,  so  that  the  keeper 
of  the  seals  may  laugh  in  his  face  when  he  asks  for  any 
changes  in  the  court  at  Ville-aux-Fayes " 

"  Hurrah  for  the  church  !  "  cried  Lupin,  slapping  Rigou  on 
the  shoulder. 

An  idea  struck  Mme.  Soudry  at  that  very  moment,  an  idea 
which  could  only  have  occurred  to  an  opera-girl's  waiting- 
maid. 

"If  we  could  only  attract  the  Upholsterer  over  to  the  Sou- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  287 

langes  fair,"  said  she,  "and  let  loose  some  bewitchingly 
pretty  girl  upon  him,  he  might  perhaps  take  up  with  her,  and 
we  could  make  trouble  between  him  with  his  wife  ;  she  could 
be  told  that  the  cabinetmaker's  son  had  gone  back  to  his  old 
loves " 

"Ah!  my  beauty,"  exclaimed  Soudry,  "there  is  more 
sense  in  your  head  than  in  the  whole  prefecture  of  police  at 
Paris!" 

"  'Tis  an  idea  which  proves  that  Madame  Soudry  is  as 
much  our  queen  by  intelligence  as  by  beauty,"  said  Lupin, 
and  was  rewarded  by  a  grimace  which  was  accepted  without 
protest  as  a  smile  by  the  best  society  of  Soulanges. 

"It  would  be  better  yet,"  said  Rigou,  who  had  remained 
thoughtful  for  some  time,  "  if  the  thing  might  be  turned  to  a 
scandal." 

"  To  have  him  brought  before  a  magistrate  on  a  criminal 
charge  !  "  cried  Lupin.  "  Oh,  that  would  be  fine  !  " 

"  How  delightful !  "  said  Soudry  artlessly,  "  to  see,  for 
instance,  the  Comte  de  Montcornet,  Grand  Cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor,  Commander  of  the  Order  of  St.  Louis,  and 
Lieutenant-General,  in  the  Police  Court  on  a  charge  of  in- 
decent  " 

"  He  is  too  fond  of  his  wife,"  pronounced  Lupin  judiciously; 
"  he  would  never  be  made  to  go  that  length." 

"  That  is  no  hindrance,"  said  Rigou ;  "  but  there  is  no  girl 
in  the  district  that  I  see  who  is  fit  to  turn  a  saint  into  a  sinner. 
I  am  looking  out  for  one  for  my  abbe." 

"  What  do  you  say  to  the  beautiful  Gatienne  Giboulard  of 
Auxerre?  Sarcus'  son  has  lost  his  head  over  her,"  suggested 
Lupin. 

"  She  would  be  the  very  one,"  said  Rigou,  "only  she  is  of 
no  use  for  our  purpose ;  she  imagines  that  she  has  only  to 
show  herself  to  be  admired  ;  she  is  not  wily  enough.  We 
want  a  minx  with  a  head  on  her  shoulders.  It  is  all  one,  she 
shall  come." 


288  THE  PEASANTRY, 

"Yes,"  said  Lupin,  "the  more  pretty  girls  he  sees,  the 
greater  the  chances." 

"  It  will  be  a  very  difficult  matter  to  bring  the  Upholsterer 
over  to  the  fair.  And  suppose  that  he  comes,  would  he  go  to 
a  dancing  saloon  like  theTivoli?"  queried  the  ex-sergeant. 

"  The  reason  for  not  going  does  not  hold  good  this  year, 
dearie,"  said  Mme.  Soudry. 

"What  reason,  my  beauty?"  inquired  her  spouse. 

"  The  Upholsterer  wanted  to  marry  Mademoiselle  de  Sou- 
langes,"  said  Lupin ;  "  he  was  told  that  she  was  too  young, 
and  he  took  offense.  That  is  the  reason  of  the  coolness  be- 
tween Monsieur  de  Soulanges  and  Monsieur  de  Montcornet, 
two  old  friends  who  both  served  in  the  Imperial  Guard. 
They  never  see  each  other  now.  The  Upholsterer  did  not 
feel  inclined  to  meet  them  at  the  fair  after  that ;  but  they  are 
away  from  home  this  year." 

As  a  rule,  the  Soulanges  family  spent  July,  August,  Septem- 
ber, and  October  at  their  country  house ;  but  at  this  particular 
time  the  general  was  in  command  of  the  artillery  in  Spain, 
under  the  Due  d'Angouleme,  and  the  countess  had  accom- 
panied her  husband.  At  the  siege  of  Cadiz  the  count  won, 
as  all  the  world  knows,  the  marshal's  baton  which  was  given 
him  in  1826. 

So  Montcornet's  enemies  might  well  believe  that  the  Aigues 
would  not  always  stand  aloof  at  the  Feast  of  Our  Lady  in 
August,  and  that  it  would  be  easy  to  induce  the  count  to 
come  to  the  Tivoli. 

"That  is  so!"  added  Lupin.  "Very  well,  daddy,"  he 
went  on,  turning  to  Rigou  ;  "it  rests  with  you  to  manoeuvre 
matters  so  that  he  comes  to  the  fair,  and  we  will  bamboozle 
him  nicely." 

The  Soulanges  fair  on  the  i5th  of  August  is  one  of  the 
special  attractions  of  the  town.  It  is  the  most  important 
fair  for  thirty  leagues  round,  eclipsing  even  those  held  at  the 
chief  town  of  the  department.  Ville-aux-Fayes  has  no  fair, 


THE  PEASANTRY.  289 

for  the  day  of  its  patron,  Saint  Sylvester,  falls  at  the  end  of 
December. 

In  August,  Soulanges  is  full  of  hawkers,  and  from  the  i2th 
to  the  1 5th  of  August  two  parallel  lines  of  stalls,  wooden 
framework  booths  covered  with  canvas,  enliven  the  usually 
empty  market-place.  The  fair  and  festival,  which  last  a  fort- 
night, is  as  good  as  a  harvest  for  the  little  place.  It  has  the 
authority  and  prestige  of  a  tradition.  Peasants  leave  the  com- 
munes, where  they  are  nailed  down  by  their  toil,  as  old  Four- 
chon  put  it,  to  go  to  the  fair  at  Soulanges.  The  tempting 
display  of  wares  and  gauds  heaped  up  in  the  booths  on  a  fair- 
green  exercises  a  periodically  renewed  fascination  over  the 
minds  of  women  and  children  and  peasants  all  over  France. 
It  is  the  one  great  spectacle  of  the  year. 

So  about  the  i2th  of  August,  the  mayor  issued  placards, 
countersigned  Soudry,  which  were  posted  all  about  the  district, 
in  order  to  secure  patronage  for  the  salesmen,  acrobats,  and 
prodigies  of  all  kinds,  by  announcing  the  duration  of  the  fair 
and  enumerating  its  principal  attractions.  These  placards, 
the  subject  of  La  Tonsard's  inquiries,  always  ended  with  the 
same  formula — 

"The  Tivoli  will  be  illuminated  with  colored  lamps," 

The  town  of  Soulanges  had,  in  fact,  adopted  the  flinty 
garden  of  the  Cafe  Tivoli  as  its  public  ballroom.  Soulanges  is 
built  upon  a  rock,  and  almost  all  the  soil  for  its  gardens  is 
imported. 

The  stony  nature  of  the  soil  determines  the  peculiar  flavor 
of  the  wine  of  the  district,  which  is  never  met  with  except  in 
the  department.  Soulanges  produces  a  dry,  white,  liqueur- 
like  wine,  something  like  Madeira,  Vouvray,  or  Johannisberg, 
those  three  crus  with  a  strong  family  resemblance. 

Socquard's  ball  made  a  prodigious  impression  on  the  native 
imagination,  and  the  whole  valley  took  a  pride  in  its  Tivoli. 
19 


290  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Those  who  had  ventured  so  far  away  as  Paris  said  that  the 
Tivoli  there  was  no  finer,  and  only  rather  larger  than  the 
Tivoli  of  Soulanges ;  and  as  for  Gaubertin,  he  boldly  avowed 
that  he  preferred  Socquard's  ball  to  the  ball  at  Paris. 

"  Let  us  think  all  these  things  over,"  said  Rigou.  "  That 
Parisian  newspaper  editor  will  very  soon  weary  of  his  amuse- 
ments, and,  by  means  of  the  servants,  we  might  induce  the 
whole  party  to  come  over.  I  will  bear  the  matter  in  mind. 
Sibilet  (though  his  credit  is  falling  shockingly  low)  might  put 
it  into  his  master's  head  that  this  would  be  a  way  to  curry 
favor  with  the  multitude." 

"Just  find  out  if  the  fair  countess  is  cruel  to  monsieur," 
said  Lupin,  for  Rigou's  benefit.  "The  trick  we  are  to  play 
off  upon  him  at  the  Tivoli  altogether  depends  on  that." 

"  That  little  woman  is  too  much  of  a  Parisienne  not  to 
know  how  to  hold  with  the  hare  and  run  with  the  hounds," 
said  Mme.  Soudry. 

"  Fourchon  set  his  granddaughter  Catherine  Tonsard  on 
Charles  at  the  Aigues,  the  Upholsterer's  second  footman  ;  we 
shall  soon  have  a  pair  of  ears  in  the  rooms  there,"  said  Rigou. 

"  Are  you  sure  of  the  Abbe  Taupin,"  he  added,  as  he  saw 
the  cure  enter  the  room. 

"  He  and  the  Abbe  Moucheron  are  as  much  ours  as  Soudry 
is  mine,"  said  Mme.  Soudry,  stroking  her  husband's  chin, 
with — "  And  you  are  not  unhappy,  are  you,  pet  ?  " 

"  I  am  counting  upon  them  for  a  scheme  for  involving  that 
hypocrite  Brossette  in  a  mess,"  said  Rigou  in  a  whisper,  as 
he  rose  to  his  feet,  "  but  I  am  not  sure  that  the  fellow-feeling 
of  the  cloth  will  not  be  too  strong  for  patriotism.  You  do 
not  know  how  strong  it  is.  I,  for  instance,  am  no  fool,  but 
I  will  not  answer  for  myself  if  I  fall  ill.  I  shall  make  my 
peace  with  the  church  no  doubt." 

"Permit  us  to  hope  so,"  said  the  cure,  for  whose  benefit 
Rigou  had  raised  his  voice. 

"Alas !  "  said  Rigou,  "  the  blunder  which  I  made  by  my 


THE  PEASANTRY.  291 

marriage  stands  in  the  way  of  the  reconciliation ;  I  cannot 
murder  Madame  Rigou." 

"Meanwhile,  let  us  think  of  the  Aigues,"  said  Madame 
Soudry. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  Benedictine.  "Do  you  know,  I  think 
that  our  crony  yonder  at  Ville-aux-Fayes  is  more  than  a  match 
for  us  ?  It  is  in  my  mind  that  Gaubertin  means  to  have  the 
Aigues  to  himself,  and  that  he  will  take  us  in,"  added  the 
cunning  Rigou. 

On  his  way  to  Soulanges  he  had  tapped  various  dark  recesses 
of  the  plot  with  the  baton  of  prudence,  and  Gaubertin's  por- 
tion of  it  rang  hollow. 

"  Why,  the  Aigues  is  not  to  belong  to  one,  but  to  all  three 
of  us,"  cried  Soudry ;  "  the  house  must  be  pulled  down  from 
top  to  bottom." 

"I  should  not  be  surprised  to  find  a  hoard  of  gold  in  it, 
which  is  all  the  more  reason  for  pulling  it  down,"  said  Rigou 
cunningly. 

"Pooh!  " 

"Yes.  During  the  wars  in  old  times,  when  the  seigneurs 
were  often  besieged  and  surprised,  they  used  to  bury  their 
money  where  they  could  find  it  again  ;  and  you  know  that  the 
Marquis  of  Soulanges-Hautemer,  in  whom  the  younger  branch 
expired,  was  one  of  the  victims  of  the  Biron  conspiracy.  The 
lands  were  confiscated  and  given  to  the  Comtesse  de  Moret." 

"  What  a  thing  it  is  to  know  the  history  of  France  !  "  said 
Soudry.  "  You  are  right.  It  is  time  that  we  came  to  an 
understanding  with  Gaubertin." 

"And  if  he  tries  to  play  fast  and  loose,"  added  Rigou,  "we 
will  see  about  putting  him  in  a  stew." 

"  He  is  rich  enough  to  be  honest,"  remarked  Lupin. 

"I  would  answer  for  him  as  I  would  for  myself;  there  is 
not  an  honester  man  in  the  kingdom,"  said  Mme.  Soudry. 

"Oh,  we  believe  in  his  honesty,"  Rigou  began,  "but  be- 
tween friends  there  should  be  no  oversights.  By-the-by,  I 


292  THE  PEASANTRY. 

suspect  somebody  in  Soulanges  of  trying  to  put  a  spoke  in  our 
wheel." 

"And  whom?"  inquired  Soudry. 

"Plissoud." 

"Plissoud!"  cried  Soudry,  "a  poor  stick!  Brunei  has 
him  by  the  leg,  and  his  wife  keeps  his  head  in  the  manger. 
You  ask  Lupin  !  " 

"What  can  he  do?"  asked  Lupin. 

"He  means  to  open  Montcornet's  eyes,"  said  Rigou; 
"  he  means  to  use  Montcornet's  influence  to  get  himself  a 
place " 

"  It  would  never  bring  him  in  as  much  as  his  wife  does  at 
Soulanges,"  said  Mme.  Soudry. 

"  He  tells  his  wife  everything  when  he  is  drunk,"  remarked 
Lupin;  "we  should  know  in  time." 

"  The  fair  Madame  Plissoud  has  no  secrets  from  you"  said 
Rigou  in  reply  to  this;  "  we  can  be  easy,  never  mind." 

"Beside,"  said  Mme.  Soudry,  "she  is  as  stupid  as  she  is 
handsome.  I  would  not  change  places  with  her.  If  I  were  a 
man,  I  should  prefer  a  woman  who  was  plain,  but  clever,  to  a 
pretty  woman  who  could  not  say  'Two.' ' 

The  notary  bit  his  lips.  "Oh!  she  can  set  other  people 
saying  'Three,'  "  said  he. 

"  Coxcomb  !  "  called  Rigou,  on  his  way  to  the  door. 

"Well,"  said  Soudry,  as  he  went  out  with  his  crony,  "we 
shall  meet  again  early  to-morrow  morning." 

"I  will  call  for  you.  Oh!  by-the-by,  Lupin,"  he  added, 
turning  to  the  notary,  who  had  left  the  room  to  order  his 
horse,  "try  to  find  out  through  Madame  Sarcus  anything  that 
our  Upholsterer  may  contrive  against  us  at  the  prefecture." 

"If  she  cannot  find  out,  who  will?"  asked  Lupin. 

Rigou  looked  at  Lupin  with  a  knowing  smile.  "  Pardon 
me,"  he  said,  "  they  are  such  a  lot  of  noodles  in  there  that  I 
was  forgetting  that  there  was  one  really  clever  man  among 
them." 


THE  PEASANTRY.  293 

"Indeed,  I  wonder  myself  how  it  is  that  I  have  not  grown 
rusty,"  said  Lupin  artlessly. 

"  Is  it  true  that  Soudry  has  engaged  a  housemaid  ?  " 

"  Why,  yes,"  said  Lupin,  "a  week  ago.  His  worship  the 
mayor  had  a  mind  to  bring  out  his  wife's  merits  by  force  of 
contrast  with  a  little  chit  of  a  Burgundian  peasant,  the  age  of 
an  old  ox.  How  he  manages  with  Madame  Soudry  we  cannot 
guess  as  yet,  for  he  has  the  impudence  to  go  very  early  to 
bed." 

"I  will  see  into  that  to-morrow,"  said  the  village  Sarda- 
napalus,  forcing  a  smile,  and  with  that  the  two  profound 
schemers  shook  hands  and  parted. 

Rigou,  cautious  soul,  had  no  wish  to  be  benighted  on  his 
way  home,  in  spite  of  his  new-born  popularity.  "  Get  along, 
citizen  !  "  he  called  to  his  horse,  a  joke  which  this  son  of  the 
Revolution  never  forgot  to  cut  at  the  expense  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. The  bitterest  reactionaries  are  always  to  be  found  among 
those  raised  on  high  by  a  popular  upheaval. 

"  Old  Rigou  pays  short  visits,"  said  Gourdon  the  registrar, 
addressing  Mme.  Soudry. 

"Short  but  sweet,"  the  lady  replied. 

"Like  his  life,"  said  the  doctor,  "that  man  is  immoderate 
in  all  things." 

"So  much  the  better,"  said  Soudry.  "My  son  will  come 
into  his  property  the  sooner." 

"Did  he  bring  any  news  from  the  Aigues?"  asked  the 
cure. 

"  Yes,  my  dear  abbe,"  said  Mme.  Soudry.  "  Those  people 
are  the  scourge  of  the  countryside.  How  Madame  de  Mont- 
cornet,  who  is  at  any  rate  a  lady  by  birth,  should  not  under- 
stand her  interests  better,  I  cannot  conceive." 

"And  yet  they  have  a  model  before  their  eyes,"  said  the 
cure\ 

"  Who  can  you  mean  ?  "  simpered  Mme.  Soudry. 

"The  Soulanges " 


294  THE  PEASANTRY. 

11  Oh  !     Yes,"  added  the  queen,  after  a  pause. 

"Here  am  I,  worse  luck!"  cried  Mme.  Vermut,  as  she 
came  into  the  room,  "  and  without  my  neutralizing  agent ; 
though  Vermut  is  too  neutral  where  I  am  concerned  to  be 
called  an  <  agent '  of  any  kind " 

Soudry,  standing  beside  Guerbet,  saw  the  basket-chaise  stop 
before  the  Tivoli.  "What  the  devil  is  that  blessed  Rigou 
after?  "  he  exclaimed.  "  The  old  tiger-cat  never  takes  a  step 
in  vain." 

"  Blessed  is  just  the  word  for  a  Benedictine,"  said  the  stout 
receiver  of  taxes. 

"He  is  going  into  the  Cafe  of  Peace,"  cried  Dr.  Gourdon. 

"Keep  cool,"  said  his  brother,  "he  is  distributing  bene- 
dictions with  closed  fists,  for  you  can  hear  them  yelping  inside 
at  this  distance." 

"  That  cafe,"  began  the  cure,  "  is  like  the  temple  of  Janus. 
It  used  to  be  called  the  Cafe  of  the  War  in  the  time  of  the 
Emperor,  and  the  place  was  as  peaceful  as  could  be ;  the  most 
respectable  people  used  to  go  there  for  a  friendly  chat " 

"  He  calls  that  chatting  !  "  broke  in  Sarcus.  "  Ye  gods  ! 
what  conversation  was  it  that  produced  a  little  Bournier !  " 

"  But  since  the  house  was  called  the  Cafe  of  Peace,  in  honor 
of  the  Bourbons,  there  is  a  brawl  there  every  day,"  pursued 
the  abbe,  finishing  the  sentence  which  the  justice  took  the 
liberty  of  interrupting.  The  cure's  joke,  like  quotations  from 
the  Bilboqucide,  came  up  very  frequently. 

"  Which  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  Burgundy  will  always  be 
the  land  of  fisticuffs,"  said  Guerbet. 

"That  remark  of  yours  is  not  so  far  wrong,"  said  the  cure, 
"it  is  pretty  much  the  history  of  our  country." 

"I  do  not  know  the  history  of  France,"  cried  Soudry; 
"but  before  I  begin  upon  it,  I  should  dearly  like  to  know  why 
Rigou  went  into  the  cafe  just  now  with  Socquard." 

"Oh,"  said  the  cure,  "it  was  on  no  charitable  errand,  you 
may  rest  assured  of  that." 


THE   PEASANTRY.  295 

"It  makes  my  flesh  creep  to  look  at  that  man,"  said  Mme. 
Vermut. 

"He  is  so  much  to  be  feared,"  the  doctor  said,  "that  I 
should  not  feel  safe  even  after  he  were  dead  if  he  had  a  grudge 
against  me ;  he  is  just  the  man  to  get  up  out  of  his  coffin  to 
play  you  some  ugly  trick." 

"  If  there  is  any  one  on  earth  who  can  send  the  Upholsterer 
over  here  on  the  i5th,  and  take  him  in  some  trap,  Rigou  is 
the  man  to  do  it,"  said  the  mayor  in  his  wife's  ear. 

"  Especially  if  Gaubertin  and  you,  dearie,  have  a  hand  in 
it,  too "  she  began  aloud. 

"  There  !  what  was  I  saying  just  now,"  exclaimed  Guerbet, 
nudging  M.  Sarcus'  elbow;  "he  has  picked  up  some  pretty 
girl  at  Socquard's,  and  is  putting  her  into  his  chaise " 

"Until "  put  in  the  poet. 

"There  is  one  for  you,  whose  speech  is  without  ill-intent," 
cried  Guerbet,  interrupting  him. 

"  You  are  wrong,  gentlemen,"  said  Mme.  Soudry.  "  Mon- 
sieur Rigou  is  thinking  only  of  our  interests ;  for,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  that  girl  is  one  of  Tonsard's  daughters." 

"Laying  in  a  stock  of  vipers,  like  an  apothecary,"  cried 
Guerbet. 

"Any  one  would  think,  to  hear  you  talk,  that  you  had 
seen  our  apothecary,  Monsieur  Vermut,"  said  Dr.  Gourdon, 
indicating  the  little  man  as  he  crossed  the  market-place. 

"  Poor  old  boy  !  "  said  the  doctor's  brother  (suspected  of 
distilling  the  volatile  elixir  of  wit  in  the  company  of  the 
apothecary's  wife).  "  Just  see  how  he  waddles  along  !  And 
he  is  supposed  to  be  a  scientific  man  !  " 

"But  for  him,"  said  the  justice,  "it  would  be  a  puzzle  to 
know  what  to  do  about  post-mortems.  He  discovered  the 
traces  of  poison  in  poor  Pigeron's  body  so  cleverly  that  the 
chemists  from  Paris  said  in  the  Court  at  Auxerre  that  they 
could  not  have  done  it  better " 

"  He  found  nothing  at  all,"  said  Soudry;  "but,  as  Presi- 


296  THE  PEASANTRY. 

dent  Gendrin  says,  it  is  just  as  well  that  people  should  believe 
that  poison  is  always  found  out." 

"Madame  Pigeron  did  wisely  to  leave  Auxerre,"  said 
Mme.  Vermut.  "  She  is  a  weak-minded  thing,  and  a  wicked 
woman,"  she  added.  "As  if  there  were  not  sure  and  harm- 
less methods  of  keeping  a  husband  in  order  without  having 
recourse  to  drugs  to  get  rid  of  the  genus.  I  should  very  much 
like  any  man  to  say  anything  against  my  conduct.  Monsieur 
Vermut,  worthy  man,  is  scarcely  ever  in  my  way,  and  he  has 
never  been  ill;  and  look  at  Madame  de  Montcornet,  how 
she  goes  on,  in  her  chalets  and  hermitages  and  what  not,  with 
that  journalist  whom  she  brought  from  Paris  at  her  own 
charges;  she  fondles  him  under  the  general's  nose." 

"At  her  own  charges?"  cried  Mme.  Soudry.  "Is  that  a 
fact  ?  If  we  could  have  proof  of  that,  what  a  pretty  subject 
for  an  anonymous  letter  to  the  general " 

"  The  general "  said  Mme.  Vermut,  "why,  you  would 

put  a  stop  to  nothing,  the  Upholsterer  follows  his  calling." 

"What  is  that,  dear?  "  inquired  Mme.  Soudry. 

"  Why — he  furnishes  the  bedroom." 

"  If  Pigeron,  poor  fellow,  instead  of  worrying  his  wife,  had 
had  the  sense  to  do  the  same,  he  would  be  living  yet,"  said 
the  registrar. 

Mme.  Soudry  leaned  toward  her  neighbor,  M.  Guerbet  of 
Conches,  and  administered  to  him  one  of  the  monkey's  gri- 
maces, inherited  (as  she  imagined)  from  her  late  mistress ;  as 
if  that  mistress'  smiles,  like  her  old  plate,  were  hers  now  by 
right  of  conquest.  She  redoubled  her  dose  as  she  indicated 
Mme.  Vermut,  who  was  flirting  with  the  poet  of  the  Bilbo- 
queidc. 

"  How  vulgar  that  woman  is  !  What  things  she  says,  and 
what  a  way  to  behave  !  I  do  not  know  whether  I  can  allow 
her  to  frequent  our  society  any  longer — especially  when  Mon- 
sieur Gourdon  the  poet  is  here." 

"  There  is  social  morality  summed  up  for  you  !  "  said  the 


THE  PEASANTRY.  297 

cure,  who  hitherto  had  not  spoken.  He  had  watched  the 
whole  scene,  and  none  of  it  was  lost  upon  him. 

After  this  epigram,  or  rather  this  social  satire,  so  pithy  and 
so  true  that  it  went  home  to  every  one  present,  a  game  of 
boston  was  proposed. 

Is  not  this  a  true  picture  of  life  in  every  latitude  of  the 
" world,"  as  we  agree  to  call  it?  The  language  is  different, 
it  is  true,  but  are  not  the  very  same  things,  nor  more  nor  less, 
said  in  the  most  richly  gilded  salons  in  Paris  ? 

III. 

THE    CAFE    DE   LA    PAIX. 

It  was  about  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  when  Rigou 
passed  by  the  Cafe  de  la  Paix.  The  slanting  rays  of  the  sunset 
steeped  the  whole -picturesque  village  in  glorious  red,  and  raised 
a  riot  of  flaming  color  in  its  window-panes,  calling  up  the 
strangest  and  most  improbable  hues  to  contrast  with  the  clear 
mirror-surface  of  the  lake. 

The  deep  schemer,  brooding  over  the  plots  that  he  was 
weaving,  allowed  his  horse  to  go  at  a  foot-pace ;  so  that,  as  he 
went  slowly  past  the  cafe,  he  heard  his  own  name  hurled  at 
somebody  in  the  course  of  one  of  the  brawls  which  had,  ac- 
cording to  the  Curd  Taupin,  produced  a  violent  contrast 
between  the  name  of  the  house  and  the  chronic  condition  of 
strife  within  it. 

It  is  necessary,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  to  enter  into  detail 
concerning  the  topography  of  this  land  of  Cocaigne.  It  lay 
in  the  angle  formed  by  the  road  with  the  market-place ;  on 
this  latter  side  it  was  bounded  by  the  cafe  itself,  and  along 
the  side  of  the  road  by  the  famous  Tivoli,  which  was  intended 
to  be  the  scene  of  one  of  the  episodes  in  the  conspiracy  against 
Montcornet. 

The  house  was  built  after  the  fashion  of  Rigou's  parsonage. 


298  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Three  first-floor  windows  looked  upon  the  road,  and  in  the 
front,  a  glass  entrance-door,  with  a  window  on  either  side  of 
it,  gave  upon  the  market-place.  There  was  another  door  at 
the  side  which  gave  admittance  to  the  backyard,  by  way  of  a 
narrow  passage  which  separated  the  cafe  from  the  next  house, 
where  Vallet,  the  Soulanges  haberdasher,  lived.  The  whole 
building,  the  green  shutters  only  excepted,  was  painted  a 
bright  yellow.  It  was  one  of  the  few  houses  in  the  little  town 
which  could  boast  of  three  stories  and  an  attic  floor,  and  had 
been  so  built  for  the  following  reasons : 

In  days  before  Ville-aux-Fayes  attained  its  present  amazing 
prosperity,  and  Soulanges  was  the  principal  place  in  the  bail- 
iwick, people  who  came  on  judicial  business,  or  visitors  for 
whom  there  was  no  room  at  the  castle,  used  to  occupy  the 
second-floor  rooms,  four  apartments  provided  with  a  bed 
apiece,  and  just  sufficient  necessaries  to  justify  the  appel- 
lation of  "furnished  lodgings;"  but  for  the  past  twenty- 
five  years  their  only  occupants  had  been  acrobats,  itinerant 
quacks,  hawkers,  and  commercial  travelers.  At  fair  time  the 
rooms  let  for  four  francs  a  day,  and  Socquard's  four  apart- 
ments brought  him  some  three  hundred  francs,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  increase  of  custom  to  his  cafe. 

The  front  of  the  house  in  the  market-place  was  adorned  with 
paintings  specially  designed  for  it.  In  the  wall-space  on  either 
side  of  the  door  you  beheld  billiard  cues  intertwined  with 
love-knots,  and,  above  the  loops  of  ribbon,  steaming  punch- 
bowls shaped  like  Greek  drinking  cups.  The  words  CAFE  DE 
LA  PAIX  blazed  in  yellow  on  a  green  background,  with  a 
pyramid  of  billiard-balls — red,  white,  and  blue — at  either  end. 
The  window-sashes,  painted  green,  contained  small  squares  of 
cheap  glass. 

Haifa  score  of  arbor  vitse  shrubs  in  boxes  (some  one  ought 
to  rename  the  plants  the  "cafe  tree")  stood  on  either  side 
the  entrance-door,  a  row  of  pretentious  failures  in  vegetable 
life.  The  awnings,  such  as  storekeepers  use  in  Paris  and  other 


THE  PEASANTRY.  299 

great  cities  to  screen  their  wares  from  the  sun,  were  luxuries 
unknown  in  Soulanges ;  so  each  bottle  in  the  window  fulfilled 
the  functions  of  a  chemist's  flask,  for  its  contents  were  periodi- 
cally recooked  inside  it.  The  lens-shaped  bosses  on  the 
window-panes  caught  the  rays  of  the  sun  like  burning  glasses, 
set  the  wines,  liqueurs,  and  syrups  boiling,  and  stewed  the 
plums  and  cherries  in  the  brandy.  So  great  was  the  heat  that 
Aglae,  her  father,  and  the  waiter  were  driven  of  an  afternoon 
to  take  refuge  on  the  benches  outside,  under  the  feeble  shadow 
of  the  luckless  shrubs  which  Mile.  Socquard  sprinkled  with 
tepid  water.  There  were  days  when  all  three — father,  daugh- 
ter, and  waiter — lay  stretched  out  like  domestic  animals,  fast 
asleep. 

The  interior  of  the  cafe  had  been  papered  in  1804  with 
scenes  from  the  romance  of  "  Paul  et  Virginie,"  then  in 
vogue.  You  beheld  negroes  cultivating  coffee,  which  thus,  at 
any  rate,  could  be  found  on'  the  wall-paper,  if  nowhere  else, 
in  an  establishment  where  scarce  a  score  of  cups  were  called 
for  in  a  month.  Colonial  products  entered  so  little  into  or- 
dinary life  at  Soulanges,  that  Socquard  would  have  been  at 
his  wits'  end  if  a  stranger  had  asked  for  chocolate.  The 
beverage  would,  however,  have  been  forthcoming,  and  the 
customer  would  have  been  supplied  with  a  nauseous  brown 
broth  produced  by  boiling  one  of  the  tablets  sold  for  two 
sous  by  country  grocers,  an  adulterated  compound  contain- 
ing more  starch,  raw  sugar,  and  pounded  almonds  than  either 
genuine  cocoa  or  sugar,  and  fabricated  to  ruin  the  trade  in 
Spanish  chocolate. 

As  to  the  coffee,  Father  Socquard  simply  boiled  it  in  a 
large  pipkin  known  in  most  households  as  "  the  big  brown 
pot."  He  dropped  in  the  mixture  of  powder  and  chicory, 
and,  with  intrepidity  which  a  Parisian  waiter  might  have  en- 
vied, served  up  the  decoction  forthwith  in  an  earthenware  cup 
which  had  nothing  to  dread  from  a  fall  on  the  floor. 

Sugar   was  still   regarded   in   Soulanges  with  a  reverence 


300  THE  PEASANTRY. 

which  dated  from  the  days  of  the  Empire ;  Aglae  Socquard 
courageously  brought  out  four  whole  lumps  of  sugar  as  large 
as  hazelnuts,  with  a  cup  of  coffee,  for  an  itinerant  hawker 
who  had  taken  it  into  his  head  to  call  for  that  beverage  of 
the  man  of  letters. 

There  had  been  no  change  in  the  cafe  since  the  day  when 
all  Soulanges  flocked  to  admire  the  new  bewitching  wall  dec- 
oration of  gilt-framed  mirrors  alternating  with  brass  hat-pegs, 
the  counter  painted  to  resemble  mahogany,  the  reddish 
marble  slab,  with  its  gleaming  plated  vessels,  and  argand 
lamps,  stated  by  rumor  to  be  Gaubertin's  gift  to  that  fine 
woman,  Mme.  Socquard.  Everything  was  besmeared  with  a 
soft,  sticky  compound,  which  can  only  be  compared  to  the 
surface  of  old  pictures  which  have  lain  forgotten  in  a  lumber- 
room. 

Suspended  by  a  chain  from  the  ceiling  hung  an  argand 
lamp  adorned  with  cut-glass  drops,  and  provided  with  a  globe- 
shaped  oil  reservoir  which  fed  two  separate  wicks  ;  the  tables 
were  painted  to  resemble  marble,  the  seats  upholstered  with 
crimson  Utrecht  velvet — all  these  things  had  contributed  to 
make  the  reputation  of  the  Cafe  of  the  War. 

Thither,  from  1802  till  1804,  the  townspeople  of  Soulanges 
repaired  to  play  at  dominoes  or  brelan  (a  game  of  cards),  and 
to  partake  of  glasses  of  liqueur  or  spiced  wine,  with  brandied 
fruits  and  biscuits;  for  colonial  produce  was  so  dear  that  cof- 
fee, chocolate,  and  sugar  were  out  of  the  question.  Punch, 
like  bavaroisc,*  was  a  great  delicacy,  and  compounded  with 
some  strange,  ropy,  sweetening  substance  not  unlike  molasses. 
The  name  has  been  lost,  but  the  substance  made  the  inventor's 
fortune. 

This  concise  account  will  suffice  to  conjure  up  similar  pic- 
tures in  the  memories  of  those  who  have  traveled  in  the  pro- 
vinces ;  and  others  who  have  never  left  Paris  can  form  some 
dim  idea  of  the  smoke-begrimed  ceiling  of  the  Cafe  de  la 

*  Tea  sweetened  with  syrup  of  capillaire. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  301 

Paix,  and  its  mirrors  dimmed  with  myriads  of  dark  specks  to 
bear  witness  to  the  independence  of  the  dipterous  tribes  of 
Burgundy. 

Socquard's  wife,  a  beauty,  who  in  the  matter  of  gallant 
adventures  surpassed  La  Tonsard  of  the  Grand-I-Vert,  had 
once  queened  it  there,  dressed  in  the  latest  fashion.  She  af- 
fected the  sultana's  turban,  for  in  the  days  of  the  Empire  the 
"sultana  "  enjoyed  the  vogue  of  the  "angel  "  of  the  present 
day. 

The  whole  feminine  world  of  the  valley  repaired  to  Sou- 
langes  to  copy  the  beauty's  turbans,  poke-bonnets,  furred  caps, 
and  coiffures  chinoises  (Chinese  headdresses).  All  the  bigwigs 
of  Soulanges  were  laid  under  contribution  for  these  splendors. 
During  the  period  of  the  short-waisted  gowns  which  our 
mothers  wore  in  the  pride  of  their  Imperial  graces,  Junie  (for 
her  name  was  Junie !)  founded  the  house  of  Socquard  ;  her 
husband  owed  to  her  a  vineyard,  the  house  in  which  they 
lived,  and  the  Tivoli.  It  was  said  that  M.  Lupin's  father  did 
reckless  things  for  handsome  Junie  Socquard  ;  it  was  certain 
that  she  presented  Gaubertin  (his  successor)  with  little  Bour- 
nier. 

These  little  matters,  and  the  mysterious  skill  with  which 
Socquard  compounded  his  spiced  wine,  would  be  sufficient  in 
themselves  to  account  for  the  popularity  of  the  cafe ;  but  there 
were,  beside,  plenty  of  contributory  causes.  Wine,  and  wine 
only,  could  be  obtained  at  the  Grand-I-Vert  or  at  any  of  the 
little  taverns  in  the  valley,  but  at  Socquard's  cafe  there  were 
liqueurs  and  foreign  wines  and  fruits  in  brandy.  It  was  the 
only  place  between  Conches  and  Ville-aux-Fayes,  and  for  six 
leagues  round,  where  you  could  play  a  game  of  billiards,  and 
nowhere  else  would  you  find  such  admirable  punch.  So  the 
valley  rang  almost  daily  with  the  fame  of  a  cafe  associated 
with  every  idea  of  the  utmost  refinement  of  luxury  for  these 
people  whose  sensibility  resided  in  their  stomachs  rather  than 
in  their  hearts.  Add  to  these  reasons  yet  another.  All  who 


302  THE  PEASANTRY. 

frequented  the  place  felt  that  it  was  a  privilege  to  form  an 
integral  part  of  the  Soulanges  festival. 

The  Cafe  de  la  Paix  fulfilled  the  same  end  as  the  Grand-I- 
Vert,  but  in  a  town  and  in  a  sphere  immediately  above  that 
of  the  tavern.  It  was  a  storehouse  of  poison,  a  half-way  house 
for  gossip  between  Ville-aux-Fayes  and  the  valley.  The 
Grand-I-Vert  supplied  the  cafe  with  milk  and  cream,  and 
Tonsard's  daughters  were  in  constant  communication  with 
the  latter  establishment. 

For  Socquard  the  market  square  of  Soulanges  was  an  appur- 
tenance of  his  cafe.  Hercules  Socquard  went  from  door  to 
door,  chatting  with  one  and  another,  wearing  for  all  costume 
a  pair  of  trousers  and  an  imperfectly  buttoned  waistcoat,  after 
the  manner  of  country  bar-keepers.  The  folk  with  whom  he 
chatted  gave  him  warning  if  any  one  happened  to  enter  his 
establishment,  and  he  returned  thither  laggingly  and,  as  it 
were,  reluctant. 

These  details  should  suffice  to  convince  the  Parisian  who 
has  never  stirred  from  Paris  that  it  would  be  difficult — let  us 
go  further,  and  say  that  it  would  be  impossible — to  conceal 
the  most  trifling  matter  in  the  whole  valley  of  the  Avonne 
from  Conches  to  Ville-aux-Fayes.  There  is  no  breach  of 
continuity  in  country  districts.  There  are  taverns  like  the 
Grand-I-Vert  and  Cafe  de  la  Paix  dotted  about  from  place  to 
place  to  catch  and  echo  every  sound.  Matters  which  possess 
absolutely  no  interest  for  anybody,  accomplished,  to  boot,  in 
the  strictest  privacy,  are  bruited  abroad  by  a  sort  of  witchcraft. 
Gossip  fulfills  the  functions  of  the  electric  telegraph,  and  by 
such  apparatus  evil-tidings  are  borne  prodigious  distances  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 

Rigou  checked  his  horse,  alighted,  and  made  the  bridle  fast 
to  one  of  the  door-posts  at  the  Tivoli.  Next  he  discovered  a 
plausible  pretext  for  listening  to  the  dispute  by  seating  him- 
self between  two  of  the  windows,  in  such  a  position  that,  if  he 
stretched  his  neck  a  little,  he  could  see  the  persons  within 


THE  PEASANTRY.  303 

and  watch  their  movements,  while  at  the  same  time  he  could 
hear  the  coarse  words  which  shook  the  windows,  and  remain 
outside  in  perfect  quiet. 

"And  if  I  were  to  tell  old  Rigou  that  your  brother  Nicholas 
has  a  grudge  against  La  Pechina,  and  is  always  on  the  watch 
for  her,"  shouted  a  shrill  voice,  "  and  that  she  will  slip  away 
under  your  seigneur's  hands,  he  would  soon  tear  the  tripes 
out  of  the  lot  of  you  such  as  you  are  ;  a  pack  of  scoundrels  at 
the  Grand-I-Vert  !  " 

"And  if  you  play  us  such  a  trick,  Aglae,"  yelled  Marie  Ton- 
sard,  "  I'll  do  that  to  you  which  you  will  never  tell  to  any 
but  the  worms  in  your  coffin.  Don't  you  meddle  in  Nicolas' 
affairs,  nor  yet  in  mine  with  Bonnebault !  " 

Marie,  urged  by  her  grandmother,  had  followed  Bonnebault 
on  a  spy's  errand.  Through  the  window  at  which  Rigou  had 
stationed  himself,  she  had  seen  Bonnebault  displaying  his  airs 
and  graces  for  Mile.  Socquard,  who  felt  bound  to  smile  on  a 
customer  in  return  for  his  sufficiently  agreeable  compliments. 
That  smile  had  brought  on  the  tempestuous  scene  and  a  light- 
ning flash  of  a  revelation  of  no  small  value  to  Rigou. 

"Well,  Father  Rigou,  are  you  helping  to  wear  out  my 
premises?"  It  was  Socquard's  voice,  and  he  clapped  the 
money-lender  on  the  shoulder. 

The  saloon-keeper  had  just  returned  from  an  outhouse  at  the 
end  of  the  garden,  whence  such  machinery  as  whirligigs,  see- 
saws, and  weighing  machines  were  being  brought  out  to  be 
put  in  their  places  in  the  Tivoli  for  the  delectation  of  the 
public.  Socquard  had  come  up  noiselessly,  for  he  was  shod 
with  the  cheap  yellow-leather  slippers  which  are  sold  in  such 
quantities  in  the  provinces. 

"  If  you  had  fresh  lemons,  I  would  take  a  glass  of  lemonade," 
said  Rigou  in  answer;  "it  is  hot  this  evening." 

"  But  who  is  there  squalling  inside  in  such  a  way?  "  asked 
Socquard,  and,  looking  through  the  window,  he  beheld  his 
daughter  and  Marie  at  close  quarters. 


304  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"They  are  fighting  for  Bonnebault,"  said  Rigou,  with  a 
sardonic  glance. 

Socquard  choked  down  a  father's  annoyance  in  the  interests 
of  the  saloon-keeper.  The  saloon-keeper  thought  it  the  more 
prudent  course  to  follow  Rigou's  example  and  listen  to  the 
sounds  from  without ;  while  the  father  in  him  yearned  to  enter 
and  declare  that  Bonnebault,  though  full  of  estimable  qualities 
as  a  customer,  was  absolutely  worthless  considered  as  the  son- 
in-law  of  a  Soulanges  notable.  Yet,  Father  Socquard  had  re- 
ceived but  few  offers  of  marriage  for  his  daughter.  The  girl 
was  twenty-two  years  old,  and  in  height,  weight,  and  size 
she  rivaled  Mme.  Vermichel,  whose  activity  was  a  standing 
marvel.  A  life  behind  a  counter  appeared  to  have  developed 
a  tendency  to  corpulence,  which  Agla6  inherited  from  her 
father. 

"  What  the  devil  has  got  the  girls?  "  inquired  Socquard  of 
his  neighbor. 

"  Oh,"  said  the  Benedictine,  "  'tis  a  devil  which  th^  church 
has  caught  more  often  than  any  other." 

For  all  answer  Socquard  fell  to  examining  the  painted  billiard 
cues  on  the  wall  between  the  windows.  Patches  of  plaster  had 
dropped  away,  till  the  beholder  was  puzzled  to  understand 
how  they  had  once  been  bound  together. 

At  that  very  moment  Bonnebault  issued  from  the  billiard- 
room,  cue  in  hand,  and  struck  Marie  smartly  on  the  shoulder. 

"You  have  made  me  miss  my  stroke,"  he  cried,  "but  I 
shall  not  miss  you,  and  I  shall  keep  on  until  you  clap  a  stopper 
on  your  gab." 

Socquard  and  Rigou  thought  it  time  to  interfere.  Both  of 
them  went  inside,  and  immediately,  with  a  sound  as  of  the 
distant  practice  of  a  drum  corps,  there  arose  such  a  swarm 
of  flies  that  the  room  was  darkened.  After  the  first  alarm, 
however,  the  cloud  of  huge  bluebottles  and  bloodthirsty 
smaller  brethren,  with  a  gadfly  or  two  among  them,  settled 
down  again  among  a  regiment  of  sticky-looking  bottles  on  a 


THE  PEASANTRY.  305 

triple  row  of  shelves  so  black  with  specks  that  the  paint  be- 
neath was  quite  invisible. 

Marie  was  crying.  To  be  beaten  by  the  man  she  loves  be- 
neath the  eyes  of  a  rival  is  a  humiliation  which  no  woman  will 
endure,  no  matter  what  her  position  in  the  social  scale.  In- 
deed, the  lower  her  rank,  the  more  violent  the  expression  of 
her  hatred.  Marie  Tonsard  saw  neither  Socquard  nor  Rigou. 
She  sank  upon  a  seat  in  gloomy  and  ferocious  silence.  The 
old  Benedictine  eyed  her  curiously. 

"Aglae,"  said  Socquard,  "go  and  find  a  fresh  lemon,  and 
rinse  a  wineglass  yourself." 

"You  did  wisely  to  send  your  daughter  away,"  said  Rigou 
in  a  low  voice;  "  she  might  perhaps  have  been  killed  in  an- 
other moment,"  and  he  glanced  significantly  at  Marie  Ton- 
sard's  hand.  She  had  caught  up  a  stool,  and  was  about  to 
hurl  it  at  Aglae's  head. 

"Come,  come!  Marie,"  said  old  Socquard,  stepping  in 
front  of  her,  "  people  do  not  come  here  to  fling  stools  about, 
and  if  you  were  to  break  my  glasses  there  would  be  a  bill 
which  you  would  not  pay  me  in  cow's  milk " 

"  Father  Socquard,  your  daughter  is  a  reptile.  I  am  every 
bit  as  good  as  she  is,  do  you  hear  ?  If  you  do  not  want  Bon- 
nebault for  a  son-in-law,  it  is  time  that  you  told  him  to  go 
and  play  billiards  somewhere  else ;  he  is  losing  five  francs 
every  minute " 

At  the  first  outburst  of  a  flood  of  words,  which  were 
shrieked  aloud  rather  than  spoken,  Socquard  took  Marie  by 
the  waist  and  flung  her  out  at  the  door  in  spite  of  her  cries 
and  struggles.  He  was  not  a  moment  too  soon ;  Bonnebault 
came  out  of  the  billiard-room  for  the  second  time,  his  eyes 
ablaze. 

"  It  shall  not  end  like  this !  "  screamed  Marie  Tonsard. 

"You!  bow  yourself  out  !  "  yelled  Bonnebault  (Socquard 
had  thrown  his  arms  about  him  to  prevent  violence).     "  Be 
off!  or  I  will  never  speak  to  you  nor  look  at  you  again." 
20 


306  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"Y0u/"  cried  Marie,  glancing  at  Bonnebault  with  fury  in 
her  eyes.  "  Give  me  back  my  money  first,  and  I  will  leave 
you  to  Mademoiselle  Socquard,  if  she  is  rich  enough  to  keep 
you " 

At  this  point  Marie  was  frightened,  for  she  saw  that  Her- 
cules Socquard  could  scarcely  master  Bonnebault,  and  with  a 
tigress'  spring  she  fled  out  into  the  road. 

Rigou  put  Marie  into  his  chaise  to  hide  her  from  the  furious 
Bonnebault,  whose  voice  reached  the  Soudrys'  house  across 
the  square ;  then,  when  Marie  was  hidden  away,  he  returned 
for  his  glass  of  lemonade,  examining  meanwhile  the  group 
formed  by  Plissoud,  Amaury,  Viollet,  and  the  waiter,  who 
were  all  endeavoring  to  calm  Bonnebault. 

"  Come,  hussar  !  it  is  your  turn,"  said  Amaury,  a  short, 
fair-haired,  blear-eyed  young  man. 

"And,  beside,  she  has  gone  away,"  said  Viollet. 

If  ever  surprise  was  expressed  on  human  countenance,  it 
was  visible  in  Plissoud's  face  when  he  discovered  that  the 
usurer  of  Blangy,  sitting  at  one  of  the  tables  while  the  quarrel 
went  on,  was  paying  more  attention  to  him  (Plissoud)  than  to 
the  two  girls.  The  clerk  of  the  court  was  thrown  off  his 
guard,  his  face  wore  the  peculiar  startled  look  that  a  man 
wears  when  he  comes  suddenly  on  another  man  against  whom 
he  is  plotting.  He  went  abruptly  back  to  the  billiard-room. 

"Good-day,  Father  Socquard,"  said  Rigou. 

"  I  will  bring  your  carriage  round,"  said  Socquard  j  "  take 
your  time." 

"How  could  one  get  to  know  what  they  say  over  their 
billiards?"  said  Rigou  to  himself;  and  just  then  he  saw  the 
waiter's  face  in  the  looking-glass. 

The  waiter  was  a  man-of-all-work.  He  pruned  Socquard's 
vines,  swept  out  the  cafe  and  billiard  saloon,  kept  the  garden 
in  order,  and  watered  the  floor  of  the  Tivoli,  and  all  for  the 
sum  of  sixty  francs  per  annum.  He  never  wore  a  jacket  save 
on  great  occasions ;  his  costume  consisted  of  a  pair  of  blue 


THE  PEASANTRY.  307 

linen  trousers,  heavy  shoes,  and  a  striped  velvet  vest,  with  the 
addition  of  a  coarse  homespun  apron  when  on  duty  in  the 
cafe  or  billiard-room.  Those  apron  strings  were  his  insignia 
of  office.  Socquard  hired  the  young  fellow  at  the  last  fair ; 
for  in  that  valley,  and  all  over  Burgundy  for  that  matter, 
servants  are  hired  by  the  year,  and  come  to  the  hiring  fair 
exactly  like  horses. 

"  What  is  your  name  ?  "  asked  Rigou. 

"  Michel,  at  your  service,"  the  lad  answered. 

"  Does  Daddy  Fourchon  come  here  now  and  again  ?  '* 

"  Two  or  three  times  a  week  with  Monsieur  Vermichel. 
Monsieur  Vermichel  gives  me  a  few  sous  for  letting  him  know 
when  his  wife  is  going  to  pounce  in  upon  him." 

"  He  is  a  good  man,  is  Daddy  Fourchon  ;  he  has  had  some 
education  and  has  plenty  of  commonsense,"  said  Rigou,  and 
he  paid  for  his  lemonade,  and  left  the  stale-smelling  room  as 
Socquard  brought  the  chaise  round  to  the  door. 

Rigou  had  just  taken  his  seat  when  he  saw  the  apothecary, 
and  hailed  him  with,  "Halloo!  Monsieur  Vermut !  "  Vermut 
looked  up,  and,  seeing  Rigou,  hastened  toward  him.  Rigou 
stepped  down  again,  and  said  in  Vermut's  ear,  "Do  you 
know  whether  there  is  any  irritant  which  can  destroy  the 
skin  and  induce  disease — say  a  whitlow  on  the  finger,  for 
instance?" 

"If  Monsier  Gourdon  undertakes  it,  yes,"  said  the  man 
of  drugs. 

"Vermut,  not  a  word  of  this  to  anyone,  if  you  do  not  want 
us  to  fall  out.  But  tell  Monsieur  Gourdon  about  it,  and  tell 
him  to  come  to  see  me,  the  day  after  to-morrow,  and  I  will 
give  him  a  forefinger  to  amputate — it  will  be  rather  a  delicate 
job." 

And  with  that  the  ex-mayor  stepped  into  his  chaise  beside 
Marie  Tonsard,  leaving  the  little  apothecary  dumfounded. 

"Well,  little  viper,"  said  Rigou,  laying  a  hand  on  the 
girl's  arm,  after  fastening  the  reins  to  a  ring  on  the  leather 


308  THE  PEASANTRY. 

apron  which  covered  them  in.  "  So  you  think  you  will  keep 
Bonnebault  by  giving  way  to  temper  like  this,  do  you?  If 
you  were  wise,  you  would  help  on  his  marriage  with  that  big 
lump  of  stupidity,  and  then  you  could  take  your  revenge." 

Marie  could  not  help  smiling  as  she  answered,  "  Oh  !  what 
a  bad  man  you  are !  You  are  our  master,  and  that  is  the 
truth." 

"  Listen,  Marie ;  I  am  a  friend  to  the  peasants,  but  I  cannot 
have  one  of  you  come  and  put  himself  between  my  teeth  and 
a  mouthful  of  game.  Your  brother  Nicolas,  as  Aglae  said,  is 
waylaying  La  Pechina.  It  is  not  right,  for  the  child  is  under 
my  protection ;  she  is  down  in  my  will  for  thirty  thousand 
francs,  and  I  mean  her  to  make  a  good  match.  I  know  that 
Nicolas,  with  your  sister  Catherine  to  help  him,  all  but  killed 
the  poor  child  this  morning ;  you  will  see  your  brother  and 
sister,  tell  them  this — '  If  you  let  La  Pechina  alone,  Father 
Rigou  will  save  Nicolas  from  the  conscription '  ' 

"You  are  the  devil  himself,"  cried  Marie.  "People  say 
that  you  have  signed  a  compact  with  him.  Is  it  possible?" 

"Yes,"  said  Rigou,  with  gravity. 

"  They  used  to  say  so  at  *  upsittings,'  but  I  did  not  believe 
them." 

"  The  devil  promised  that  no  attempts  upon  my  life  should 
succeed ;  that  I  should  never  be  robbed ;  that  I  should 
live  for  a  hundred  years  without  an  illness;  that  I  should 
succeed  in  everything  that  I  undertook,  and  until  the  hour  of 
my  death  I  should  be  as  young  as  a  two- year  cockerel ' 

"As  you  certainly  are,"  said  Marie.  "Well,  then,  it  is 
devilish  easy  for  you  to  save  my  brother  from  the  army " 

"  If  he  has  a  mind  ;  for  he  will  have  to  lose  a  finger,  that  is 
all,"  said  Rigou.  "  I  will  tell  him  how." 

"  Why,  you  are  taking  the  upper  road  !  "  said  Marie. 

"I  never  go  the  other  way  of  a  night,"  said  the  unfrocked 
monk. 

"  Because  of  the  crucifix?"  queried  Marie  artlessly. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  309 

"That  is  just  it,  cunning  girl !  "  returned  the  diabolical 
personage. 

They  were  reaching  a  spot  where  the  road  lay  in  a  hollow, 
a  cutting  through  a  furrow  in  the  land,  with  a  tolerably 
steep  bank  rising  on  either  side  such  as  you  often  see  on 
French  cross-country  roads.  On  the  hither  side  of  this  hollow 
the  road  forked  to  Cerneux  and  Ronquerolles,  and  in  the 
angle  of  the  fork  a  crucifix  stood.  Any  one  standing  on 
either  bank  might  fire  on  his  man  to  a  certainty,  for  he 
could  almost  clap  the  muzzle  in  the  passenger's  face;  and 
this  was  the  more  easy,  since  that  the  slopes  behind  were 
covered  with  vines,  and  there  were  chance-sown  brambles 
and  bushes  on  the  bank  which  afforded  cover.  It  may  be 
guessed,  therefore,  why  the  usurer,  with  unfailing  prudence, 
never  went  that  way  at  night.  The  Thune  flows  round  the 
base  of  the  little  hill  which  they  call  the  Cross  Green. 
Never  was  there  a  spot  better  adapted  for  murder  and  ven- 
geance, for  the  Ronquerolles  road  runs  down  to  the  bridge 
over  the  Avonne  by  the  hunting-lodge,  and  the  road  to 
Cerneux  crosses  the  high  road  in  such  a  sort  that  the  murderer 
would  practically  have  a  choice  of  four  roads,  and  might 
fly  in  the  direction  of  the  Aigues,  or  Ville-aux-Fayes,  or 
Ronquerolles,  or  Cerneux,  and  leave  his  pursuers  in  perplexity 
as  to  the  way  he  had  taken. 

"  I  will  set  you  down  just  outside  the  village,"  said  Rigou, 
when  they  came  in  sight  of  the  first  houses  of  Blangy. 

"Because  of  Annette,  you  old  coward!"  cried  Marie. 
"Are  you  going  to  send  that  girl  away  soon  ?  You  have  had 
her  for  three  years.  What  amuses  me  is  that  your  old  woman 
is  so  well.  God  avenges  Himself." 


310  THE  PEASANTRY. 

IV. 

THE  TRIUMVIRATE   OF  VILLE-AUX-FAYES. 

The  prudent  money-lender  had  made  a  law  that  his  wife 
and  Jean  should  sleep  between  sunset  and  sunrise,  proving  to 
them  that  the  house  would  never  be  robbed  while  he  him- 
self sat  up  till  midnight  and  lay  late.  Not  only  had  he 
secured  the  house  to  himself  between  the  hours  of  seven  in  the 
evening  and  five  in  the  morning,  but  he  accustomed  both  wife 
and  man  to  respect  his  slumbers  and  those  of  the  Hagar 
whose  room  lay  beyond  his  own. 

So  the  next  morning  about  half-past  six,  Mme.  Rigou 
came  and  knocked  timidly  at  her  husband's  door.  (With 
Jean's  aid  she  had  already  looked  after  the  poultry.)  "Mon- 
sieur Rigou,"  she  said,  "you  asked  me  to  call  you." 

The  sound  of  the  woman's  voice,  her  bearing,  and  the 
way  in  which  she  obeyed  an  order,  quaking  all  the  while 
lest  her  very  obedience  should  be  taken  amiss,  showed  the 
utter  immolation  of  the  poor  creature  to  her  ingenious  petty 
tyrant  and  her  affection  for  him. 

"All  right !  "  cried  Rigou. 

"  Is  Annette  to  be  wakened  too  ?  " 

"No.  Let  her  sleep  on.  She  has  been  up  all  night,"  he 
answered  gravely.  The  man  was  always  serious  even  when 
he  indulged  in  a  joke.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Annette  had 
secretly  opened  the  door  to  Sibilet,  Fourchon,  and  Catherine 
Tonsard,  all  of  whom  came  at  different  times  between  eleven 
and  one  o'clock  that  morning. 

Ten  minutes  later  Rigou  came  downstairs.  He  was  dressed 
more  carefully  than  usual,  and  greeted  his  wife  with  a  "Good- 
morning,  old  woman,"  which  made  her  prouder  than  she 
would  have  been  to  see  a  Montcornet  at  her  feet. 


THE  PEASANTRY,  311 

"Jean,"  said  Rigou,  addressing  the  lay-brother,  "don't 
leave  the  house.  Don't  let  them  rob  me ;  you  would  lose 
more  by  it  than  I." 

It  was  by  mingling  kindness,  and  rebuffs,  and  hope,  and 
hard  words,  in  this  way,  that  the  learned  egoist  had  broken 
in  his  three  slaves  to  a  dog-like  fidelity  and  attachment. 

Again  Rigou  took  the  upper  road  to  avoid  the  Cross  Green, 
and  reached  the  market-place  of  Soulanges  about  eight  o'clock. 
He  had  just  made  the  reins  fast  to  the  nearest  post  by  the 
flight  of  steps,  when  a  shutter  was  put  back,  and  Soudry  ex- 
hibited his  countenance.  Two  small  black  eyes  gave  a  cun- 
ning expression  to  a  face  seamed  by  the  smallpox. 

"  Let  us  begin  by  breaking  a  crust  together,"  he  said,  "  for 
we  shall  not  get  any  breakfast  at  Ville-aux-Fayes  before  one 
o'clock." 

He  called  under  his  breath  to  a  damsel  as  young  and  pretty 
as  Rigou's  servant.  The  girl  came  noiselessly  down  the  stairs ; 
he  bade  her  bring  a  piece  of  ham  and  some  bread,  and  went 
himself  to  the  cellar  for  wine. 

For  the  thousandth  time  Rigou  contemplated  the  parlor; 
the  oak  wainscot  that  rose  to  elbow  height,  the  mouldings  on 
the  ceiling,  the  spacious,  handsomely  painted  cupboards,  the 
neat  stove,  and  the  magnificent  timepiece  which  once  be- 
longed to  Mile.  Laguerre.  The  backs  of  the  chairs  were  lyre- 
shaped  ;  the  woodwork  painted  white  and  varnished  ;  the  seats 
were  of  green  morocco  with  gilded  nail-heads.  The  massive 
mahogany  table  was  covered  with  green  oilcloth,  scored  with 
dark  lines,  and  bound  with  green  binding.  The  pains  which 
Urbain  bestowed  on  the  polishing  of  the  parquetry  floor  at- 
tested the  fact  that  his  mistress  had  herself  been  a  domestic 
servant. 

"Pshaw!  "  said  Rigou  to  himself.  "This  kind  of  thing 
costs  too  much.  One  can  eat  just  as  comfortably  in  my  room 
at  home,  and  I  save  the  interest  on  the  money  laid  out  in  this 
useless  show.  Why,  where  is  Madame  Soudry? "  he  inquired, 


312  THE  PEASANTRY. 

as  the  mayor  of  Soulanges  came  in  with  a  venerable  bottle  in 
his  hand. 

"She  is  asleep." 

"And  you  do  not  disturb  her  slumbers  much,"  said  Rigou. 

The  old  gendarme  winked  facetiously,  and  indicated  the 
ham  which  the  pretty  Jeannette  was  bringing  in. 

"  A  nice  morsel  like  that  wakes  you  up,"  he  said,  "  home- 
cured  !  We  only  cut  into  it  yesterday." 

"  I  would  not  have  thought  it  of  you,  old  chum  ;  where  did 
you  pick  her  up?"  asked  the  old  monk,  lowering  his  voice 
for  Soudry's  ear. 

"Like  the  ham,"  said  the  gendarme,  with  another  wink, 
"she  has  been  in  the  house  for  a  week." 

Jeannette  still  wore  her  night-cap,  and  had  thrust  her  bare 
feet  into  her  slippers.  She  wore  a  short  petticoat,  and  the 
straps  of  her  bodice  were  passed  over  her  shoulders  in  peas- 
ant fashion ;  the  crossed  folds  of  a  bandana  handkerchief 
could  not  altogether  hide  her  fresh  and  youthful  charms ;  alto- 
gether she  looked  no  less  appetizing  than  the  ham  vaunted  by 
Soudry.  She  was  plump  and  short.  The  mottled  red  of  the 
bare  arms  that  hung  by  her  side,  the  large  dimpled  hands  and 
short  fingers  shapely  fashioned  at  the  tips,  all  spoke  of  high 
health.  Add  to  this  a  face  of  a  thoroughly  Burgundian  type, 
ruddy,  but  white  at  the  temples,  ears,  and  throat ;  chestnut 
hair,  eyes  which  turned  slightly  upward  at  the  outer  corners, 
wide  nostrils,  a  sensual  mouth,  and  a  trace  of  down  upon  the 
cheeks.  With  a  lively  expression  tempered  by  a  deceptive 
demureness,  she  was  the  very  model  of  a  roguish  servant-girl. 

"Upon  my  word,  Jeannette  is  like  the  ham,"  declared 
Rigou.  "  If  I  had  not  an  Annette,  I  should  like  a  Jeannette." 

"One  is  as  good  as  the  other,"  said  Soudry,  "for  your 
Annette  is  fair,  and  soft,  and  delicate.  How  is  Madame 
Rigou?  Is  she  asleep?"  Soudry  resumed  abruptly,  to  show 
Rigou  that  he  understood  the  jest. 

"  She  wakes  at  cock-crow,"  said  Rigou,  "  but  she  goes  to 


THE  PEASANTRY.  313 

roost  with  the  hens.  I  stay  up  myself  and  read  the  '  Constitu- 
tionnel.'  Evening  and  morning  my  wife  lets  me  doze ;  she 
would  not  come  into  the  room  for  the  world " 

"  Here  it  is  just  the  other  way,"  put  in  Jeannette.  "  The 
mistress  sits  up  with  company  and  plays  at  cards ;  there  are 
sometimes  fifteen  of  them  in  the  drawing-room.  The  master 
goes  off  to  bed  at  eight,  and  we  get  up  at  daybreak " 

"  It  looks  different  to  you,"  said  Rigou,  "  but  it  comes  to 
the  same  thing  in  the  end.  Well,  my  dear,  you  come  to  me, 
and  I  will  send  Annette  here.  It  will  be  the  same  thing,  with 
a  difference." 

"  Old  scoundrel,"  said  Soudry,  "  you  will  make  her  blush!  " 

"  Eh,  gendarme  !  so  you  only  want  one  horse  in  your 
stable?  After  all,  every  one  takes  his  luck  where  he  finds  it." 

Jeannette,  in  obedience  to  her  master's  order,  went  to  put 
out  his  clothes. 

"You  promised  to  marry  her  when  your  wife  dies,  I  sup- 
pose?" asked  Rigou. 

"  It  is  the  only  way  at  our  age,"  said  Soudry. 

"  If  the  girls  had  ambition,  it  would  be  a  short  cut  to 
widower's  estate,"  returned  Rigou;  "more  particularly,  if 
Jeannette  heard  Mme.  Soudry  mention  her  way  of  soaping 
the  stairs." 

Both  husbands  grew  thoughtful  at  this.  When  Jeannette 
came  to  announce  that  all  was  in  readiness,  Soudry  took  her 
away  with  him,  with  a  "  Come  and  help  me,"  which  drew  a 
smile  from  the  unfrocked  monk. 

"  There  is  a  difference  after  all,"  said  he  ;  "I  should  not 
be  afraid  to  leave  him  with  Annette." 

Fifteen  minutes  after,  Soudry,  dressed  in  his  best,  stepped 
into  the  basket-chaise,  and  the  pair  went  round  by  the  lake 
on  the  way  to  Ville-aux-Fayes. 

"And  how  about  yonder  castle?"  asked  Rigou,  as  they 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  end  of  the  manor-house.  The  stress 
which  the  old  Jacobin  gave  to  the  word  "castle"  revealed 


314  THE  PEASANTRY. 

the  hatred  of  the  fine  halls  and  great  estates  which  small  pro- 
prietors cherish  in  their  souls. 

"  Why,  I  am  sure,  I  hope  it  will  stand  for  my  lifetime," 
said  Soudry.  "  The  Comte  de  Soulanges  was  my  general ; 
he  has  done  me  a  good  turn ;  he  managed  my  pension  nicely, 
and  then  he  allows  Lupin  to  manage  his  estate,  and  Lupin's 
father  made  a  fortune  by  managing  it.  There  will  be  another 
to  come  after  Lupin,  and  so  long  as  there  are  Counts  of  Sou- 
langes the  place  will  be  respected.  They  are  a  good  sort, 
they  live  and  let  live " 

"  Ah  !  but  the  general  has  three  children,  and  perhaps  after 
his  death  they  will  not  agree.  Some  day  or  other  the  sons 
and  the  son-in-law  will  sell  the  place,  and  that  mine  of  lead 
and  old  iron  will  be  sold  to  the  storekeepers,  whom  we  will 
contrive  to  squeeze." 

The  castle  of  Soulanges  seemed  to  defy  the  unfrocked 
monk. 

"Ah!  yes,  they  used  to  build  solidly  in  those  times!" 
exclaimed  Soudry.  "  But  Monsieur  de  Soulanges  is  econo- 
mizing at  this  moment  so  as  to  entail  the  Soulanges  estate  ;  it 
is  to  go  with  the  title " 

"  Entails  fall  through,"  said  Rigou. 

When  the  theme  was  exhausted,  the  pair  fell  to  discussing 
the  merits  of  their  respective  domestics  in  a  Burgundian  dia- 
lect, a  trifle  too  broad  to  print.  This  never-failing  topic 
lasted  them  till  they  reached  Gaubertin's  headquarters.  Even 
the  most  impatient  reader  may  perhaps  feel  sufficient  curiosity 
on  the  subject  of  Ville-aux-Fayes  to  excuse  a  brief  digression. 

It  is  an  odd-sounding  word,  but  it  is  easily  explained.  It 
is  a  corruption  of  the  Low  Latin  villa-in-fago ;  the  manor  in 
the  woods.  The  name  is  sufficient  to  tell  us  that  a  forest 
formerly  covered  the  delta  of  the  Avonne  which  flows  five 
leagues  away  into  the  Yonne.  Doubtless,  it  was  a  Frank  who 
built  a  stronghold  on  the  ridge  which  thereabout  makes  a 
detour,  and  slopes  gradually  down  into  the  strip  of  plain 


THE  PEASANTRY.  315 

where  Leclercq  the  deputy  had  bought  an  estate.  The  con- 
queror made  a  broad  and  long  moat,  and  so  intrenched  him- 
self in  the  delta.  His  was  a  strong  position,  and,  for  a  feudal 
lord,  an  extremely  convenient  one  for  the  collection  of  tolls 
and  pontage  on  the  bridges  by  which  all  wayfarers  must  pass, 
and  grinding  dues  at  the  water-mills. 

Such  is  the  history  of  the  first  beginnings  of  Ville-aux- 
Fayes.  Every  feudal  stronghold  or  religious  settlement 
attracted  residents  about  it,  to  form  the  nucleus  of  a  town  at 
a  later  day  when  the  place  was  in  a  position  to  create  or  de- 
velop an  industry,  or  to  attract  business.  Jean  Rouvet's 
invention  of  water-carriage  for  timber,  requiring  wharves  in 
places  suitable  for  intercepting  the  floating  piles,  was  the 
making  of  Ville-aux-Fayes,  then  a  mere  village  in  comparison 
with  Soulanges.  Ville-aux-Fayes  became  the  headquarters  of 
the  trade  in  the  timber  which  was  grown  along  both  streams 
for  a  distance  of  twelve  miles.  Workmen  flocked  to  Ville- 
aux-Fayes,  for  many  hands  were  needed  to  build  up  the  piles 
which  the  Yonne  carries  into  the  Seine,  beside  the  salvage 
and  recovery  of  "stray"  rafts.  This  working  population 
supplied  consumers  of  produce  and  stimulated  trade.  So  it 
came  to  pass  that  Ville-aux-Fayes,  which  numbered  scarce  six 
hundred  inhabitants  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  in 
1790  had  a  population  of  two  thousand,  which  had  doubled 
since  Gaubertin  came  to  the  place.  This  is  how  it  was 
brought  about : 

When  the  Legislative  Assembly  reconstituted  the  electoral 
divisions,  Ville-aux-Fayes,  on  account  of  its  geographical 
position,  was  selected  as  the  seat  of  local  government,  to  the 
exclusion  of  Soulanges.  The  position  of  Ville-aux-Fayes 
marked  it  out  for  a  sub-prefecture,  and  a  sub-prefecture  en- 
tailed a  court  of  first  instance,  and  the  hierarchy  of  officials 
required  by  both  institutions.  With  the  increase  of  popula- 
tion in  Paris  there  began  to  be  an  increase  in  the  demand  for 
fuel,  prices  rose,  and  Ville-aux-Fayes  grew  more  important 


316  THE  PEASANTRY. 

with  the  development  of  its  trade.  Gaubertin's  second  start 
in  life  had  been  determined  by  foresight ;  he  felt  sure  that 
Paris  would  grow  with  the  peace  ;  and,  in  fact,  the  population 
increased  by  one-third  between  1815  and  1825. 

The  configuration  of  Ville-aux-Fayes  is  determined  by  the 
lay  of  the  land.  Wharves  line  either  side  of  the  promontory. 
Above  the  town  and  below  the  hillside  covered  with  the  forest 
of  Soulanges  a  bar  has  been  made  across  the  river  to  stop  the 
floating  timber ;  and  here  the  outskirts  of  Ville-aux-Fayes 
begin.  The  lower  town  lies  in  the  broadest  part  of  the  delta, 
along  the  brink  of  a  sheet  of  water — a  lake  formed  by  the 
Avonne ;  but  the  upper  town,  consisting  of  some  five  hundred 
houses  and  gardens,  is  built  on  the  higher  ground  which  sur- 
rounds the  promontory  on  three  sides.  This  elevation,  which 
was  cleared  of  forest  three  centuries  ago,  looks  down  on  the 
ever-changing  picture  of  the  Avonne  lake,  a  sparkling  surface 
covered  with  rafts  built  of  timber  taken  from  the  great  piles 
on  the  wharves  at  the  water's  edge.  The  streams  loaded  with 
floating  wood,  the  picturesque  waterfalls  on  the  Avonne,  which 
flow  down  from  a  higher  level  into  the  river,  turning  mill- 
wheels,  and  furnishing  water-power  to  several  factories  on  its 
way,  all  combine  to  form  a  busy  scene,  which  is  the  more 
unusual  on  account  of  its  background  of  green  masses  of 
forest ;  while  the  distant  view  up  the  valley  of  the  Aigues 
stands  out  in  glorious  contrast  to  the  sombre  setting  of  the 
forest-clad  hillsides  above  the  town  of  Ville-aux-Fayes. 

On  the  side  of  the  valley  opposite  this  vast  curtain  of  trees 
the  king's  highway  crosses  the  river  by  a  bridge,  and  pursues 
its  course  till  it  reaches  a  row  of  poplars  within  a  quarter  of  a 
league  of  Ville-aux-Fayes,  where  a  little  hamlet  lies  about  a 
post-station  situated  there  on  a  large  farm.  The  cross-road 
from  Soulanges  likewise  curves  away  round  to  the  bridge, 
where  it  joins  the  king's  highway. 

Gaubertin  had  built  himself  a  house  in  the  delta,  with  a 
view  of  making  such  a  place  that  the  lower  town  should  be  as 


THE  PEASANTRY.  317 

handsome  as  the  upper.  It  was  a  modern  stone-house,  a  single 
story  high,  with  attics  in  the  slate-covered  roof,  and  the  usual 
cast-iron  balconies,  Venetian  blinds,  much-painted  window- 
sashes,  and  no  ornament  save  a  fretwork  under  the  cornice. 
There  was  a  spacious  courtyard  attached  to  the  house,  and  an 
"  English  garden  "  at  the  back,  on  the  brink  of  the  Avonne. 
The  sub-prefecture  could  not  be  allowed  to  fall  short  of  such 
elegance ;  and,  at  the  instance  of  the  deputies,  Messieurs  Le- 
clercq  and  Ronquerolles,  it  was  transferred  from  its  wretched 
temporary  quarters  to  a  brand-new  mansion  built  opposite 
Gaubertin's  house.  There  also  the  town  hall  was  built,  and 
quite  recently  a  Palais  de  Justice  had  been  erected  for  the 
houseless  court  of  first  instance ;  in  fact,  Ville-aux-Fayes  owed 
a  whole  series  of  imposing  modern  edifices  to  the  spirited  ex- 
ample set  by  its  mayor.  A  police-station  completed  the  out- 
line of  the  market  square. 

These  changes,  of  which  the  inhabitants  were  not  a  little 
proud,  were  due  to  Gaubertin's  influence.  And  he,  but  a  few 
days  before,  had  received  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  on 
the  occasion  of  the  approaching  Birthday.  In  a  mushroom 
town  thus  constituted  there  is  no  aristocracy  and  no  old 
noblesse ;  and  the  citizens,  proud  of  their  independence,  took 
up  the  quarrel  of  the  peasants  against  a  count  of  the  Empire 
who  had  gone  over  to  the  Bourbons.  To  their  thinking,  the 
real  oppressors  were  the  oppressed.  The  attitude  of  the 
trading  town  was  so  well  known  at  the  Home  Office  that  the 
sub-prefect  had  been  specially  chosen ;  he  was  a  conciliatory 
spirit,  educated  by  his  uncle,  the  famous  des  Lupeaulx  ;  a  man 
of  compromises,  familiar  with  the  expedients  by  which  men 
are  governed,  the  sort  of  man  who  is  dubbed  a  time-server  by 
puritanical  politicians  capable  themselves  of  doing  a  great 
deal  worse. 

Gaubertin's  house  was  adorned  within  with  all  the  tasteless 
inventions  of  modern  luxury.  In  the  dining-room  you  beheld 
expensive  paper-hangings  with  gilt  borders,  bronze  chande- 


318  THE  PEASANTRY. 

liers,  mahogany  furniture,  chairs  covered  with  crimson  leather, 
astral  lamps,  round-tables  with  marble  tops,  a  white  gilt-edged 
porcelain  dessert-service,  and  colored  lithographs  ;  the  draw- 
ing-room was  upholstered  in  blue  cashmere ;  the  whole  house 
looked  dreary  and  commonplace  to  the  last  degree ;  but  at 
Ville-aux-Fa)  es  it  was  looked  upon  as  the  last  extreme  of  the 
luxury  of  a  Sardanapalus.  Mme.  Gaubertin  played  the  part 
of  a  lady  of  fashion  with  great  effect ;  she  adopted  sundry 
small  affectations,  and  minced  and  simpered  at  forty-five  in  her 
quality  of  mayoress  who  has  an  established  position  and  a  little 
court  of  her  own. 

Do  not  the  three  houses  belonging  respectively  to  Rigou, 
Soudry,  and  Gaubertin  reflect  the  country  village,  the  little 
town,  and  the  sub-prefecture  to  perfection  for  those  who  know 
France  ? 

Gaubertin  was  neither  a  clever  man  nor  a  man  of  talent, 
but  to  all  appearance  he  possessed  both  talent  and  cleverness. 
He  owed  the  unfailing  justice  of  his  forecasts,  like  his  cunning, 
to  an  excessive  greed  of  gain.  He  coveted  fortune,  not  for 
his  wife's  sake,  nor  for  his  two  daughters,  nor  for  his  son,  nor 
for  himself,  nor  yet  for  family  considerations  and  the  conse- 
quence which  money  brings ;  even  when  the  quickening  im- 
pulse of  vengeance  was  set  aside,  he  loved  money-getting  ;  he 
loved  the  game  for  its  own  sake,  like  Nucingen  the  banker,  of 
whom  it  was  said  that  he  was  always  fingering  the  gold  in  both 
pockets  at  once. 

The  round  of  business  was  this  man's  whole  life ;  and  now 
that  he  was  full  to  repletion,  he  worked  as  hard  as  though  he 
wanted  daily  bread.  All  the  schemes,  and  trickery,  and  craft 
of  business  as  a  fine  art,  all  the  clever  strokes  to  be  made, 
statements  of  accounts  and  receipts,  all  the  clash  of  conflicting 
interests  put  Gaubertin  in  spirits;  they  set  the  blood  in  circu- 
lation and  distributed  the  bile  equally  over  his  system.  He 
came  and  went,  rode  and  drove,  and  went  by  boat,  and  at- 
tended sales  and  auctions  in  Paris ;  nothing  escaped  his  at- 


THE  PEASANTRY.  319 

tention,  and  he  held  countless  threads  in  his  hands  without 
confusion. 

Gaubertin  was  quick  and  decided  in  his  movements  and 
ideas ;  short,  small,  and  compact,  with  his  sharply  cut  nose, 
bright  eyes,  and  erect  ears ;  there  was  a  suggestion  of  the 
hunting-dog  about  him.  The  perfectly  round  and  sunburned 
face,  from  which  the  brown  ears  stood  out  (for  he  habitually 
wore  a  cap),  was  in  perfect  agreement  with  his  character. 
His  nose  turned  up  at  the  end  ;  the  hard  lips  looked  as  though 
they  could  never  unclose  to  speak  a  kindly  word.  A  pair  of 
sleek,  bushy,  black  whiskers  under  the  high-colored  cheek- 
bones disappeared  in  his  stock.  His  frizzled  iron-gray  hair 
arranged  itself  naturally  in  a  succession  of  rolls  like  an  old- 
fashioned  magistrate's  wig;  it  looked  as  though  it  had  been 
crimped  by  the  scorching  heat  of  the  fire  which  burned  within 
that  dark  head,  and  flashed  in  sparks  from  the  little  gray  eyes. 
The  wrinkles  circling  their  rims  were  doubtless  caused  by 
screwing  them  up  to  gaze  across  country  in  full  sunlight,  a 
characteristic  which  completed  his  face.  In  person  he  was 
spare,  muscular,  and  slight ;  he  had  the  claw-like  horny  hands 
covered  with  hair  peculiar  to  those  who  take  a  practical  part 
in  their  work.  His  manner  usually  pleased  those  who  dealt 
with  him,  for  he  could  assume  a  deceptive  gayety ;  he  could 
talk  a  great  deal  without  saying  anything  which  he  did  not 
intend  to  say ;  and  he  wrote  but  little,  so  that  he  might  deny 
anything  not  in  his  favor  which  might  escape  him  at  unawares. 
He  had  an  honest  cashier  to  keep  his  books ;  men  of  Gauber- 
tin's  stamp  can  always  unearth  an  honest  subordinate,  and  in 
their  own  interests  they  make  of  him  their  first  dupe. 

When  Rigou's  little  basket-chaise  appeared  toward  eight 
o'clock  in  the  poplar  avenue  by  the  post-house  near  the  bridge, 
Gaubertin  in  cap,  jacket,  and  boots  was  already  returning  from 
his  wharves.  He  quickened  his  pace  at  the  sight  of  the  chaise, 
for  he  rightly  guessed  that  Rigou  would  only  put  himself  out 
for  "  the  big  business." 


320  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"Good-day,  Daddy  Nab;  good-day,  stomach  full  of  gall 
and  wisdom,"  said  he,  tapping  either  visitor  on  the  chest. 
"  We  are  going  to  talk  business,  and  we  will  talk  glass  in 
hand,  by  George,  that  is  the  way  to  do  it." 

"You  ought  to  grow  fat  at  that  trade,"  said  Rigou. 

"I  am  working  too  hard;  I  do  not  keep  indoors  like  the 
rest  of  you,  who  have  the  bad  habit  of  staying  at  home  like 
an  old  pensioner.  Oh  !  you  are  well  off,  upon  my  word,  you 
can  do  business  in  an  easy-chair,  sit  at  the  table  with  your 
back  to  the  fire — business  comes  to  find  you.  Just  come  in, 
the  house  is  yours,  by  George,  so  long  as  you  stop  in  it." 

A  man  in  a  blue  livery,  faced  with  red,  came  to  take  the 
horse  away  to  the  stables  in  the  yard. 

Gaubertin  left  his  guests  in  the  garden  for  a  moment,  while 
he  gave  orders  concerning  breakfast.  Then  he  came  out  to 
them. 

"  Well,  my  little  wolves,"  he  said,  rubbing  his  hands,  "  the 
gendarmerie  of  Soulanges  were  on  their  way  to  Conches  at 
daybreak  this  morning ;  they  are  about  to  arrest  the  wood- 
stealers,  no  doubt.  They  are  in  a  hurry,  by  George,  they 
are!"  (He  looked  at  his  watch.)  "By  this  time  those 
fellows  ought  to  be  formally  and  duly  arrested." 

"Probably  they  are,"  said  Rigou. 

"Well,  what  do  people  say  in  the  village,  have  they  made 
up  their  minds?" 

"What  should  they  make  up  their  minds  to  do?"  de- 
manded Rigou.  "This  is  no  concern  of  ours,"  he  added, 
giving  Soudry  a  look. 

"  How  is  it  no  concern  of  yours?  If  our  concerted  meas- 
ures force  them  to  sell  the  Aigues,  who  will  make  five  or  six 
hundred  thousand  francs  by  it  ?  Shall  I,  all  by  myself?  I 
cannot  fork  out  two  millions,  my  purse  is  not  long  enough. 
I  have  three  children  to  set  up  in  life,  and  a  wife  who  will  not 
listen  to  reason  on  the  score  of  expense.  I  want,  and  must 
have  partners.  Daddy  Nab  has  the  money  ready,  has  he  not  ? 


THE  PEASANTRY.  321 

He  has  not  a  single  mortgage  which  will  not  have  expired  ; 
he  has  bonds  for  which  I  am  answerable  now  for  his  money. 
I  put  myself  down  for  eight  hundred  thousand  francs,  and 
my  son  the  judge  for  two  hundred  thousand  ;  we  are  counting 
on  Daddy  Nab  for  another  two  hundred  thousand.  How 
much  do  you  mean  to  put  in,  reverend  father?  " 

"The  rest,"  said  Rigou  coolly. 

"  The  deuce !  I  should  like  to  have  my  hand  where  you 
have  your  heart !  And  what  are  you  going  to  do?  " 

"  Why,  I  shall  do  as  you  do.     Tell  us  your  plan." 

"My  own  plan,"  said  Gaubertin,  "  is  to  take  double  quantity, 
so  as  to  sell  half  to  those  in  Conches,  Cerneux,  and  Blangy 
who  want  land.  Soudry  will  have  customers  at  Soulanges, 
and  you  have  yours  here.  That  is  not  the  difficulty.  How 
shall  we  arrange  among  ourselves  ?  How  shall  we  divide  the 
big  lots?" 

"Dear  me,"  said  Rigou,  "nothing  more  simple.  Each 
will  take  what  suits  him  best.  I,  in  the  first  place,  shall  give 
nobody  any  trouble.  I  will  take  the  woods  with  my  son-in- 
law  and  Soudry.  There  has  been  so  much  damage  done  in 
them  that  they  will  not  tempt  you.  We  will  leave  you  the 
rest  for  your  share,  faith  !  you  will  have  your  money's  worth." 

"Will  you  sign  an  agreement  to  that  effect?"  asked 
Soudry. 

"  The  agreement  would  be  worth  nothing,"  Gaubertin 
answered.  "  Beside,  you  see  that  I  am  acting  on  the  square ; 
I  am  trusting  implicitly  to  Rigou,  for  the  purchase  will  be 
made  in  his  name." 

"  That  is  good  enough  for  me,"  said  Rigou. 

"  I  make  one  stipulation  ;  I  am  to  have  the  hunting-lodge 
and  the  outbuildings  and  fifty  acres  round  about  it.  I  will 
pay  you  for  the  land.  I  shall  make  the  lodge  into  a  country- 
house  ;  it  will  be  near  my  woods.  Madame  Gaubertin — 
Madame  Isaure,  as  she  chooses  to  be  called — will  make  her 
'  villa  '  of  it,  she  says." 
21 


382  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  I  have  no  objection,"  said  Rigou. 

Gaubertin  looked  round  on  all  sides ;  and  having  made  quite 
certain  that  by  no  possibility  could  any  one  overhear  them, 
he  continued,  "Eh!  now,  between  ourselves,  do  you  think 
they  are  likely  to  play  us  some  scurvy  trick?  " 

"For  instance?"  asked  Rigou,  who  was  determined  not 
to  understand  till  Gaubertin  should  speak  out. 

"Why,  suppose  that  one  of  the  wildest  of  the  lot,  and  a 
handy  man  with  a  gun  into  the  bargain,  should  send  a  bullet 
whistling  about  the  count's  ears — just  by  way  of  bluster?" 

"  The  count  is  the  man  to  run  up  and  collar  him." 

"Michaud  then? " 

"Michaud  would  keep  it  quiet;  he  would  bide  his  time, 
and  play  the  spy,  and  find  out  the  man  at  last  and  those  who 
had  set  him  on." 

"You  are  right,"  said  Gaubertin.  "Thirty  of  them  ought 
to  rise  at  once.  Some  of  them  would  be  sent  to  the  hulks. 
After  all,  they  would  pick  out  the  scamps,  and  we  would  rather 
be  rid  of  them  when  they  have  served  our  turn.  You  have  two 
or  three  good-for-nothings  yonder — the  Tonsards  and  Bonne- 
bault,  for  instance " 

"  Tonsard  might  do  some  queer  stroke  of  work,"  said 
Soudry ;  "  I  know  him.  We  will  egg  him  on  further  through 
Vaudoyer  and  Courtecuisse. " 

"  I  have  Courtecuisse,"  said  Rigou. 

"  And  I  have  Vaudoyer  in  the  hollow  of  my  hand." 

"Let  us  be  cautious  !  "  said  Rigou.  "  Caution,  above  all 
things!" 

"  Come,  your  reverence,  can  it  be  that  you  imagine  that 
there  is  any  harm  in  talking  about  things  that  are  going  on 
about  us?  Is  it  we  who  are  taking  out  warrants,  locking 
people  up,  stealing  wood,  and  gleaning?  If  the  count  goes 
the  right  way  to  work,  if  he  arranges  with  some  farmer-general 
to  exploit  the  Aigues,  it  will  be  good-by  to  the  baskets,  the 
vintage  is  over.  And  you  will  lose  more  by  it  than  I.  What 


THE  PEASANTRY.  323 

we  say  is  said  between  ourselves,  and  for  our  own  benefit,  for 
I  certainly  shall  not  say  a  word  to  Vaudoyer  which  I  could 
not  repeat  before  God  and  men.  But  there  is  no  harm  in 
looking  forward  and  profiting  by  events  as  they  arise.  The 
peasants  hereabout  are  a  hot-headed  race ;  the  general's  regu- 
lations and  Michaud's  severity  and  persecutions  have  driven 
them  to  the  end  of  their  patience.  To-day  they  have  made 
a  mess  of  the  business,  and  I  will  wager  that  there  has  been  a 
scuffle  with  the  gendarmerie.  Let  us  have  breakfast." 

Mme.  Gaubertin  came  out  into  the  garden  to  find  her  guests. 
She  was  a  somewhat  pale-faced  woman,  with  long  ringlets 
drooping  on  either  side  of  her  face.  She  played  the  passion- 
ate-virtuous role,  the  woman  who  has  never  known  love.  She 
cultivated  platonic  affection  with  the  officials,  and  had  for 
her  gallant  slave  the  public  prosecutor,  her  patito,  as  she 
called  him.  Mme.  Gaubertin  was  addicted  to  caps  with  top- 
knots (though  preferably  she  wore  nothing  to  hide  her  hair), 
and  overdid  blue  and  pale  rose-color.  She  danced.  At  forty- 
five  she  had  all  the  affectations  of  a  young  miss,  in  spite  of 
large  feet  and  alarming  hands.  She  desired  to  be  called 
Isaure,  for  amid  her  many  oddities  and  absurdities  she  had 
the  good  taste  to  consider  that  the  name  of  Gaubertin  was 
unpresentable.  Her  eyes  were  pale,  her  hair  of  some  unde- 
cided tint  resembling  dingy  nankeen ;  and,  let  it  be  added,  a 
goodly  number  of  young  ladies  took  her  for  their  model, 
stabbed  the  sky  with  their  eyes,  and  p»sed  as  angels. 

"  Well,  gentlemen,"  she  said,  as  she  greeted  them,  "  I  have 
strange  news  for  you.  The  gendarmes  have  come  back " 

"  Have  they  brought  any  prisoners  ?  " 

"  None  whatever  !  The  general  asked  for  their  pardon  in 
advance — and  it  was  granted  in  honor  of  the  happy  anniver- 
sary of  the  accession  of  our  King." 

The  three  associates  stared  at  each  other. 

"  That  big  Cuirassier  is  cleverer  than  I  thought  him,"  said 
Gaubertin.  "Let  us  sit  down  to  table;  we  need  consolation 


324  THE  PEASANTRY. 

after  this.  After  all,  the  game  is  not  lost,  it  is  only  drawn 
out.  It  lies  with  you  now,  Rigou." 

Soudry  and  Rigou  went  home  again  out  of  spirits.  None 
of  them  could  think  of  any  expedient  for  bringing  about  a 
catastrophe  for  their  own  advantage,  so  they  trusted,  as  Gau- 
bertin  had  suggested,  that  something  might  turn  up. 

There  were  certain  Jacobins,  in  the  early  days  of  the  Revo- 
lution, who  were  furious  when  the  clemency  of  Louis  XVI. 
defeated  their  purposes,  and  deliberately  provoked  the  severity 
of  the  court  that  they  might  find  an  excuse  for  bringing  about 
the  anarchy  which  meant  both  power  and  fortune  for  them. 
In  the  same  manner,  the  Comte  de  Montcornet's  formidable 
enemies  put  their  last  hope  in  the  future  rigorous  methods  of 
Michaud  and  the  keepers.  Gaubertin  promised  his  support 
in  general  terms  ;  he  had  no  wish  that  his  understanding  with 
Sibilet  should  be  known.  Nothing  can  equal  the  discretion 
of  a  man  of  Gaubertin's  stamp,  unless,  indeed,  it  is  the  dis- 
cretion of  an  ex-gendarme  or  an  unfrocked  monk.  In  the 
hands  of  three  such  men,  each  steeped  to  the  lips  in  cupidity 
and  hatred,  the  plot  could  only  end  well,  or,  more  properly 
speaking,  ill. 

V. 

HOW   A   VICTORY   WAS   WON   WITHOUT   A   BLOW. 

Mme.  Michaud's  fears  had  come  of  the  second-sight  of 
passionate  love.  When  a  soul  finds  its  all-in-all  in  another 
soul,  it  comprehends  in  the  end  the  whole  world  in  which 
that  other  dwells,  and  sees  clearly  in  that  atmosphere.  Love 
brings  to  a  woman  the  presentiments  which,  at  a  later  day, 
become  the  second-sight  of  motherhood.  While  the  poor 
young  wife  fell  into  the  habit  of  listening  to  the  confused 
voices  which  reach  us  across  the  mysterious  tracts  of  space,  a 
scene  in  which  her  husband's  life  was  actually  threatened 
took  place  at  the  Grand-I-Vert. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  325 

Those  who  had  been  first  astir  that  morning,  before  five 
o'clock,  had  seen  the  Soulanges  gendarmerie  go  by  on  the 
way  to  Conches.  The  news  spread  quickly;  and  those  in- 
terested were  astonished  to  learn  from  the  people  who  lived 
on  the  higher  road  that  a  detachment  of  gendarmerie,  under 
the  Lieutenant  of  Ville-aux-Fayes,  had  gone  through  the  forest 
of  the  Aigues.  It  happened  to  be  a  Monday,  which  in  itself 
was  a  sufficient  reason  why  the  laborers  should  go  to  the  wine- 
shop, and  it  was  likewise  the  eve  of  the  anniversary  of  the 
return  of  the  Bourbons ;  not  that  those  who  frequented  that 
den  of  thieves,  the  Grand-I-Vert,  required  that  "august  cause" 
(as  it  used  to  be  called)  to  justify  their  presence  in  the  tavern, 
though  they  would  have  urged  the  plea  loudly  enough  if  they 
had  seen  the  shadow  of  an  official  of  any  sort  or  description. 

The  Tonsards,  with  Godain,  who  was  in  a  manner  one  of 
the  family,  and  Vaudoyer,  and  an  old  vine-dresser  named 
Laroche,  were  all  assembled  there.  Laroche  lived  from  hand 
to  mouth  ;  he  was  one  of  the  Blangy  delinquents  who  had 
been  pressed  into  the  service  to  cure  the  general  of  his  taste 
for  prosecutions.  Blangy  had  likewise  furnished  three  other 
men,  twelve  women,  eight  girls,  and  five  boys ;  the  women 
and  children  had  husbands  or  parents  to  be  responsible  for 
them  ;  but  all  of  them  were  paupers ;  in  fact,  they  composed 
the  entire  pauper  population  of  Blangy.  The  vine-growers 
did  well  in  1823,  and  the  large  quantity  of  wine  in  1826  was 
sure  to  mean  another  good  year  for  them  ;  the  general  had 
employed  a  good  deal  of  labor,  and  had  set  money  circulating 
in  the  neighboring  communes,  so  that  it  had  been  no  easy 
task  to  find  a  hundred  and  twenty  proletarians  in  Blangy, 
Conches,  and  Cerneux.  It  had,  however,  been  done.  Moth- 
ers and  grandmothers  who  had  not  a  sou  of  their  own,  like 
Granny  Tonsard,  had  been  put  forward.  This  Laroche,  the 
old  laborer,  possessed  absolutely  nothing  ;  he  was  unlike  Ton- 
sard, he  had  no  hot  and  vicious  blood  in  his  veins ;  it  was  a 
dumb,  cold  hatred  that  sustained  him  ;  he  worked  in  sullen 


326  THE  PEASANTRY. 

silence,  detesting  work,  and  unable  to  live  without  it.  His 
features  were  hard,  his  expression  repellent ;  his  vigor  had 
not  failed  him,  despite  his  sixty  years,  but  his  back  was  weak- 
ened and  bowed  ;  he  saw  no  future  before  him,  he  would 
have  no  bit  of  field  to  call  his  own,  and  he  envied  those  who 
had  land.  So  he  ravaged  the  forest  of  the  Aigues  without 
mercy  and  delighted  in  doing  wanton  damage. 

"Shall  we  let  them  take  us  away?"  asked  Laroche. 
"After  Conches  they  will  come  to  Blangy;  this  is  my  sec- 
ond offense,  they  will  give  me  three  months  for  it." 

"  And  what  can  you  do  against  the  gendarmerie,  you  old 
sot  ?  "  retorted  Vaudoyer. 

"Do?  Could  we  not  slash  their  horses'  legs  with  our 
scythes  ?  They  would  soon  come  down,  their  guns  are  not 
loaded,  and  when  they  found  themselves  outmatched  by  ten 
to  one,  they  would  soon  be  obliged  to  take  themselves  off. 
Suppose  that  the  three  villages  rose,  and  two  or  three  gen- 
darmes were  killed,  would  they  guillotine  everybody  ?  They 
would  soon  be  obliged  to  give  it  up,  as  they  did  once  before 
on  the  other  side  of  Burgundy  when  they  called  the  soldiers 
out  for  another  affair  like  this.  Bah  !  the  soldiers  went,  and 
the  peasants  kept  on  cutting  wood  ;  they  had  done  it  for 
years  and  years,  just  as  we  have  here." 

"Life  for  life,"  said  Vaudoyer;  "it  would  be  better  to 
kill  just  one  of  them ;  and  to  do  it  without  running  risks,  so 
as  to  disgust  those  arminacs  with  the  place." 

"  Which  of  the  brigands?  "  demanded  Laroche. 

"  Michaud,"  said  Courtecuisse.  "  Vaudoyer  is  right,  right 
ten  times  over.  You  will  see  that  when  a  keeper  has  been 
turned  off  into  the  dark,  it  will  not  be  so  easy  to  find  others 
to  stay  in  the  sun  and  keep  a  lookout.  It  is  not  so  much 
that  they  are  there  in  the  daytime,  but  they  are  there  all 
night  as  well.  They  are  fiends,  that  they  are  !  " 

"Wherever  you  go,"  said  Granny  Tonsard  (and  the  old 
woman  of  seventy  showed  her  parchment  face,  pitted  with 


THE  PEASANTRY.  327 

countless  holes,  pierced  with  two  green  slits  of  eyes,  and  gar- 
nished with  locks  of  dingy  white  hair,  which  straggled  out 
from  beneath  a  red  handkerchief),  "wherever  you  go,  you 
come  upon  them,  and  they  stop  you.  They  look  into  your 
faggot,  and  if  there  is  a  single  green  branch  in  it,  if  there  is 
so  much  as  a  miserable  hazel  switch,  they  will  take  away  the 
faggot  and  take  out  a  summons ;  they  are  as  good  as  their 
word.  Ah  !  the  blackguards !  there  is  no  way  of  getting  at 
them  ;  and  if  they  suspect  you,  they  will  soon  make  you  undo 
your  faggot.  They  are  three  curs  yonder  that  are  not  worth 
two  farthings ;  if  they  were  put  out  of  the  way,  it  would  not 
ruin  France,  at  any  rate." 

"  Little  Vatel  has  not  so  much  harm  in  him,"  said  her 
daughter-in-law. 

"JftmS"  said  Laroche ;  "  he  does  his  work  like  the  rest 
of  them.  He  will  joke  right  enough  and  laugh  with  you ; 
but  you  stand  none  the  better  with  him  for  that.  He  is  the 
worst  of  the  three  ;  like  Michaud,  he  has  no  heart  for  the 
poor  people " 

"  Monsieur  Michaud  has  a  pretty  wife,  all  the  same,"  said 
Nicolas  Tonsard. 

"She  is  with  young,"  said  the  old  grandmother;  "but  if 
things  go  on  like  this,  there  will  be  a  queer  christening  when 
she  calves." 

"Oh!"  cried  Marie  Tonsard,  "it  is  impossible  to  joke 
with  any  of  those  arminacs  of  Parisians.  They  would  take 
out  a  summons  against  you  if  it  came  to  it,  and  no  more  care 
about  you  than  if  they  had  never  joked " 

"  So  you  have  tried  to  come  round  them,  have  you?  "  said 
Courtecuisse. 

"  Lord  love  you  !  " 

"Well,"  said  Tonsard,  looking  like  a  man  who  has  made 
up  his  mind,  "  they  are  men  like  others,  we  may  get  round 
them." 

"  My  word,  no,"  Marie  went  on,  following  out  her  thought, 


328  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"they  do  not  laugh  at  all.  What  they  give  them,  I  do  not 
know ;  for,  after  all,  if  that  swaggerer  at  the  hunting-lodge  is 
married,  Steingel,  and  Vatel,  and  Gaillard  are  not ;  and  there 
is  nobody  else — there  is  not  a  woman  in  the  country  who 
would  have  anything  to  say  to  them." 

"  We  shall  see  directly  how  things  go  at  harvest  and  the 
vintage,"  said  Tonsard. 

"  They  will  not  stop  the  gleaning,"  said  the  grandmother. 

"But  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that,"  replied  her  daughter-in- 
law.  "That  Groison  of  theirs  said  plainly  that  Monsieur  le 
Maire  was  about  to  give  notice  that  no  one  should  glean  with- 
out a  pauper's  certificate,  and  who  will  give  them  but  he  him- 
self, and  you  may  be  sure  that  he  will  not  give  many.  He  is 
going  to  forbid  us  to  go  into  the  fields  until  the  last  sheaf  is 
carted ' ' 

"Why,  he  has  you  every  way,  that  Cuirassier,"  shouted 
Tonsard,  transported  with  rage. 

"  I  only  heard  this  yesterday,"  said  his  wife;  "I  offered 
Groison  a  nip  of  brandy  to  get  news  out  of  him." 

"  There  is  one  that  is  well  off!  "  cried  Vaudoyer.  "  They 
have  built  him  a  house,  and  found  him  a  good  wife,  he  has 
money  coming  in,  he  is  dressed  like  a  king.  I  myself  was  a 
rural  policeman  for  twenty  years,  and  I  got  nothing  by  it  but 
colds." 

"  Yes,  he  is  well  off,"  said  Godain  ;  "  he  has  property ' 

"And  we  stop  here  like  the  idiots  we  are  !  "  cried  Vaudoyer; 
"  let  us  go  to  Conches,  at  any  rate,  and  see  what  is  going  on 
there;  they  have  no  more  patience  than  the  rest  of  us " 

"  Let  us  go,"  said  Laroche,  who  was  none  too  steady  on 
his  feet.  "  If  I  do  not  put  an  end  to  one  or  two  of  them,  I 
wish  I  may  lose  my  name." 

"You/"  said  Tonsard,  "you  would  let  them  carry  off  the 
whole  commune ;  but,  for  my  own  part,  if  any  one  were  to 
lay  a  finger  on  the  old  woman,  there  is  my  gun,  and  it 
would  not  miss." 


THE  PEASANl^RY.  329 

"  Well,"  said  Laroche,  turning  to  Vaudoyer,  "  if  they  take 
a  single  one  from  Conches,  there  will  be  a  gendarme  stretched 
out." 

"  Daddy  Laroche  has  said  it !  "  cried  Courtecuisse. 

"  He  has  said  it,"  said  Vaudoyer,  "  but  he  has  not  done  it, 
and  he  will  not  do  it.  What  good  would  you  get  by  it  unless 
you  happen  to  want  a  drubbing  ?  Life  for  life — it  would  be 
better  to  kill  Michaud." 

While  this  scene  took  place,  Catherine  Tonsard  had  been 
standing  sentinel  at  the  tavern-door,  to  warn  the  drinkers 
to  be  quiet  if  any  one  went  by.  In  spite  of  their  vinous 
gait,  they  dashed  rather  than  went  out  of  the  door,  and  in 
their  bellicose  ardor  took  the  road  which  lies  for  three- 
quarters  of  a  mile  under  the  park  walls  of  the  Aigues. 

Conches  was  a  thoroughly  Burgundian  hamlet,  a  collection 
of  squalid-looking  cottages,  built  some  of  brick  and  some  of 
clay,  along  the  high  road  which  formed  its  single  street. 
The  hamlet  looked  fairly  presentable  when  approached  from 
the  opposite  side  by  the  cross-road  from  Ville-aux-Fayes,  for 
a  little  river  flowed  between  the  high  road  and  the  Ron- 
querolles  woods,  which  succeeded  to  those  of  the  Aigues 
along  the  heights,  and  the  view  was  enlivened  by  two  or 
three  houses  rather  picturesquely  grouped.  The  church  and 
parsonage-house  stood  apart,  a  principal  feature  in  the  view 
from  the  adjacent  Conches  gate  of  the  park. 

The  conspirators  from  the  Grand-I-Vert  caught  sight  of 
the  gendarmerie  through  the  trees  in  the  square  in  front  of 
the  church,  and  sped  along  with  redoubled  haste.  Even  as 
they  came  up,  three  horsemen  issued  from  the  Conches  gate 
of  the  park,  and  the  peasants  recognized  the  general,  his. 
servant,  and  Michaud  the  head-forester,  who  galloped  off 
toward  the  square.  Tonsard  and  his  party  reached  the  spot 
a  few  minutes  later. 

The  delinquents,  male  and  female,  had  made  no  sort  of 
resistance;  there  they  stood,  encircled  by  five  gendarmes 


330  THE  PEASANTRY. 

from  Soulanges  and  fifteen  from  Ville-aux-Fayes.  The  whole 
village  had  turned  out.  The  prisoners'  children  or  mothers 
and  fathers  came  and  went,  bringing  them  such  things  as 
they  should  need  while  they  were  in  prison.  The  scene  was 
curious  enough;  the  population  were  evidently  indignant, 
but  they  scarcely  said  a  word,  like  people  who  had  made 
up  their  minds  that  the  thing  must  be.  The  women,  old 
and  young,  were  the  only  speakers.  The  children  and  the 
little  girls  were  perched  on  piles  of  logs  the  better  to  see. 

"Those  hussars  of  the  guillotine  have  chosen  their  time  well ! 
They  have  come  on  a  holiday,"  the  women  were  saying. 

"So  you  let  them  take  away  your  husband  like  thatj  do 
you  ?  What  will  become  of  you  during  the  next  three 
months,  the  three  best  in  the  whole  year,  when  wages  are 
high?" 

"They  are  the  real  thieves !  "  retorted  the  woman,  with  a 
menacing  glance  at  the  gendarmes. 

"What  makes  you  squint  at  us  in  that  way?"  asked  the 
quartermaster.  "You  may  be  sure  of  this,  that,  if  you  in- 
dulge yourself  in  insults,  it  will  not  take  long  to  settle  your 
business." 

"I  didn't  say  anything,"  the  woman  hastily  remarked, 
with  a  meek  and  piteous  countenance. 

"  I  might  make  you  repent  of  some  words  that  I  overheard 
just  now." 

"Come,  children,  be  quiet,"  said  the  mayor  of  Conches, 
the  postmaster.  "The  devil !  the  men  must  do  as  they  are 
told  !  " 

"  That  is  true,  it  is  all  the  doing  of  the  master  at  the  Aigues. 
But,  patience !  " 

At  that  moment  the  general  came  out  into  the  square ;  his 
arrival  produced  some  murmurs,  but  he  troubled  himself  very 
little  about  them.  He  went  straight  to  the  lieutenant  of 
gendarmerie  from  Ville-aux-Fayes  ;  a  few  words  were  spoken, 
and  a  paper  handed  over,  then  the  officer  turned  to  his  men — 


THE  PEASANTRY.  331 

"  Release  your  prisoners,  the  general  has  obtained  their 
pardon  from  the  King." 

While  he  spoke,  General  de  Montcornet  talked  with  the 
mayor  of  Conches  in  low  tones,  and  after  a  moment  the  latter 
raised  his  voice  and  addressed  the  delinquents,  who  had  looked 
to  sleep  that  night  in  prison,  and  were  all  bewildered  at  find- 
ing themselves  at  liberty. 

"You  must  thank  Monsieur  le  Comte,  my  friends,"  he 
said;  "you  owe  the  remission  of  the  penalties  to  him,  he 
went  to  Paris  to  ask  pardon  for  you,  and  obtained  it  in  honor 

of  the  anniversary  of  the  King's  return  to  France I 

hope  that  you  will  behave  better  in  future  toward  the  general, 
who  has  behaved  so  kindly  toward  you,  and  that  you  will  re- 
spect his  property  henceforth Vive  It  Roi"  (Long  live 

the  King). 

And  the  peasants  shouted,  "Long  live  the  King,"  with 
enthusiasm,  to  avoid  shouting,  "Long  live  the  count." 

This  scene  had  been  planned  by  the  general  in  concert 
with  the  prefect  and  attorney-general  with  a  deliberate  pur- 
pose. While  showing  firmness  to  stimulate  the  local  authori- 
ties and  impress  the  minds  of  the  country  people,  the  peasants 
were  to  be  treated  gently ;  so  delicate  did  these  crises  appear 
to  be.  And,  indeed,  if  any  resistance  had  been  offered,  the 
Government  would  have  been  placed  in  a  very  awkward  posi- 
tion. As  Laroche  had  said,  it  was  impossible  to  send  a  whole 
commune  to  the  guillotine. 

The  general  had  asked  the  mayor  of  Conches,  the  lieu- 
tenant, and  the  quartermaster  to  breakfast  with  him.  The 
conspirators  of  Blangy  stayed  in  the  tavern  at  Conches.  The 
released  offenders  were  spending  the  money  which  would  other- 
wi<e  have  supported  them  in  prison  on  drink,  and  naturally 
the  Blangy  folk  were  asked  to  the  "wedding."  Country 
people  call  every  rejoicing  a  "wedding,"  and  they  eat  and 
drink  and  quarrel  and  fight  and  go  home  again  drunk  and 
disabled,  and  this  is  called  a  "wedding." 


332  THE  PEASANTRY. 

The  general  took  his  guests,  not  by  the  Conches  gate, 
whence  he  had  issued,  but  by  the  forest,  in  order  to  show 
them  the  damage  that  had  been  done,  so  that  they  might 
judge  of  the  importance  of  the  question. 

At  noon,  when  Rigou  was  returning  home  from  Blangy, 
the  count  and  countess  and  their  guests  were  finishing  break- 
fast in  the  splendid  room  described  in  Blondet's  letter  to 
Nathan,  the  room  on  which  Bouret's  luxurious  tastes  had  left 
its  impress. 

"It  would  be  a  great  pity  to  give  up  such  a  place,"  said 
the  lieutenant.  He  had  been  over  the  Aigues,  and  had  seen 
it  all  for  the  first  time ;  and  now,  looking  about  him  over  the 
rim  of  a  glass  of  champagne,  he  observed  the  admirable  series 
of  unclad  nymphs  who  supported  the  ceiling. 

"Wherefore  we  shall  defend  ourselves  to  the  death,"  said 
Blondet. 

The  lieutenant  gave  his  quartermaster  a  glance  which 
seemed  to  recommend  silence  to  that  officer.  "  Suppose  that 
I  say  that  the  general's  enemies  are  not  all  among  the  fields," 
he  began. 

The  gallant  lieutenant  was  softened  by  the  splendid  break- 
fast, the  magnificent  plate,  the  imperial  luxury  which  had 
replaced  the  luxury  of  the  opera-girl ;  and  Blondet's  wit  had 
been  as  stimulating  as  the  soldierly  bumpers  which  they  had 
drained. 

"How  is  it  that  I  have  enemies?"  asked  the  astonished 
general. 

"  So  kind  as  he  is,"  added  the  countess. 

"He  and  our  mayor,  Monsieur  Gaubertin,  parted  in  anger, 
and,  for  the  sake  of  a  quiet  life,  he  should  be  reconciled  with 
him." 

"With  &'#*/"  cried  the  count;  "then  you  do  not  know 
that  he  was  my  steward,  and  a  dishonest  scamp  ?  " 

"  He  is  not  a  scamp  now,"  said  the  lieutenant ;  "  he  is  the 
mayor  of  Ville-aux-Fayes." 


THE  PEASANTRY.  333 

"Our  lieutenant  is  a  clever  man,"  said  Blondet;  "it  is 
plain  that  a  mayor  is  by  nature  honest." 

The  lieutenant,  seeing  from  the  count's  remark  that  it  was 
impossible  to  open  his  eyes,  said  no  more  on  that  subject., 


VI. 

THE  FOREST  AND  THE   HARVEST. 

The  scene  at  Conches  had  a  good  effect ;  the  count's  faith- 
ful keepers  saw  that  no  green  wood  was  taken  out  of  the 
forest  of  the  Aigues ;  but  the  forest  had  been  so  thoroughly 
exploited  by  the  peasants  for  twenty  years  that  there  was 
nothing  but  young  growth  left,  and,  dead-wood  being  scarce, 
they  were  busy  killing  the  trees  against  the  coming  winter. 
The  means  used  were  extremely  simple,  and  could  only  be 
discovered  some  time  afterward. 

Tonsard  sent  his  mother  into  the  forest ;  the  keeper  used  to 
see  her  come  in,  and,  knowing  the  way  by  which  she  would 
go  out,  would  lie  in  wait  to  inspect  her  faggot.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  always  found  nothing  in  it  but  sear  brushwood, 
fallen  branches,  and  withered  and  broken  boughs,  and  Granny 
Tonsard  used  to  groan  and  pity  herself  because  at  her  age 
she  had  to  go  so  far  to  pick  up  such  a  miserable  bundle  of 
sticks.  But  she  did  not  say  that  she  had  been  in  the  dense 
thickets,  where  the  saplings  grew,  grubbing  at  the  base  of  the 
young  trees  and  stripping  off  a  ring  of  bark  close  to  the 
ground,  covering  up  her  work  with  moss  and  leaves,  and 
leaving  all  apparently  as  it  was  before.  It  was  impossible  to 
detect  this  ring-shaped  incision,  made  not  with  a  billhook, 
but  by  tearing  away  the  bark  in  such  a  manner  that  the  dam- 
age seemed  to  be  the  work  of  the  cockchafer  grub,  a  wood- 
gnawing  insect  pest  known  by  the  various  names  of ' '  the  Turk, ' ' 
the  wood-worm,  and  wood-maggot  in  different  parts  of  the 
country.  This  grub  lives  upon  bark,  lodging  itself  between 


334  THE  PEASANTRY. 

the  bark  and  the  wood  to  gnaw  its  way  underneath.  If  the  tree 
is  large  enough,  and  the  grub  fails  to  make  the  circuit  before 
its  transformation  into  the  chrysalis  stage,  it  is  safe,  for  so 
long  as  the  bark  is  not  ringed  round,  the  tree  can  grow.  To 
show  the  intimate  connection  between  entomology,  agricul- 
ture, horticulture,  and  vegetable  production  generally,  it  is 
sufficient  to  point  out  that  Latreille,  the  Comte  Dejean,  and 
Klug  of  Berlin,  Gene  of  Turin,  and  other  great  naturalists 
have  discovered  that  nearly  all  insects  feed  on  vegetable 
growths.  There  are  twenty-seven  thousand  species  of  plant- 
eating  coleoptera  in  M.  Dejean's  published  catalogue ;  and  in 
spite  of  the  eager  research  of  entomologists  of  all  countries, 
there  are  still  an  enormous  number  of  species  unidentified  in 
their  triple  transformations.  Not  only  has  every  wild  plant 
its  particular  insect  pest,  but  every  vegetable  product,  how- 
ever modified  by  human  industry,  has  its  special  insect.  The 
hemp  and  flax  which  clothes  human  creatures  and  goes  to  the 
making  of  ropes  to  hang  them,  after  covering  the  backs  of  an 
army,  is  transformed  into  writing-paper ;  and  those  who  read 
or  write  much  are  familiar  with  the  habits  of  the  "silver 
fish,"  an  insect  marvelous  in  its  appearance  and  genesis, 
which  passes  through  its  mysterious  transformations  in  a  ream 
of  carefully  kept  white  paper.  You  behold  the  creature  skip 
nimbly  in  his  splendid  raiment,  glittering  like  talc  or  spar; 
it  is  a  flying  "silver  fish." 

The  wood-maggot  is  the  despair  of  the  cultivator.  In  its 
earlier  stages  it  hides  below  ground,  safe  out  of  reach  of 
administrative  circulars;  so  that  the  authorities  can  only 
order  a  series  of  Sicilian  vespers  when  it  emerges  as  a  full- 
grown  cockchafer.  If  people  knew  the  whole  extent  of  the 
damage  done  by  cockchafers  and  caterpillars,  they  would  pay 
more  attention  to  the  prefect's  injunctions.  Holland  all  but 
perished  because  the  teredo  burrowed  in  her  dykes,  and  sci- 
ence has  not  yet  discovered  the  final  transformation  of  the 
teredo,  nor  the  earlier  metamorphoses  of  the  cochineal  insect. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  335 

In  all  probability  the  ergot  of  rye  is  a  seething  insect  popula- 
tion, though  scientific  genius  can  only  discern  slight  move- 
ment in  its  particles. 

So  as  the  peasants  waited  for  harvest  and  vintage  some  fifty 
old  women  imitated  the  work  of  the  cockchafer  grub  at  the 
foot  of  five  or  six  hundred  trees  which  should  never  bear 
leaves  again  and  stand  up,  dead  and  stark,  in  the  spring.  All 
the  trees  were  purposely  chosen  in  out-of-the-way  spots,  so 
that  the  peasants  might  the  better  secure  the  spoil  of  dead 
branches.  Who  told  them  the  secret  ?  No  one  in  so  many 
words ;  but  Courtecuisse  had  complained  one  day  at  the 
tavern  that  an  elm-tree  in  his  garden  was  dying  at  the  top; 
there  was  something  the  matter  with  the  tree;  and  he,  Courte- 
cuisse, suspected  that  it  was  a  wood-maggot ;  he  knew  well 
what  a  wood-maggot  was,  and  he  knew  that  when  a  tree  had  a 
wood-maggot  in  it,  that  tree  was  as  good  as  dead.  Then  he 
showed  his  audience  in  the  tavern  how  the  maggot  went  round 
the  tree. 

The  old  women  did  their  work  of  destruction  as  mysteri- 
ously and  as  deftly  as  pixies,  urged  on  by  the  exasperating 
measures  taken  by  the  mayor  of  Blangy.  Other  mayors  had 
received  instructions  to  follow  the  example  set  them.  The 
rural  police  made  public  proclamation  that  no  one  would  be 
allowed  to  glean  in  cornfields  or  vineyards  without  a  certificate 
from  the  mayor  of  each  commune ;  the  prefect  sent  down  an 
example  of  the  certificate  required  to  the  sub-prefecture,  and 
the  sub-prefect  supplied  the  mayors  with  a  pattern  copy  apiece. 
The  great  landowners  of  the  district  admired  Montcornet's 
behavior,  and  the  prefect  said  that  if  other  great  personages 
would  do  likewise,  and  live  on  their  estates,  the  result  would 
be  of  the  happiest  ;  for  such  measures  as  these,  added  the  pre- 
fect, ought  to  be  taken  all  over  the  country ;  they  should  be 
uniformly  adopted  and  modified  by  benevolence  and  such 
enlightened  philanthropy  as  that  of  General  de  Montcornet. 

And  the  general  and  the  countess,  with  the  help  of  the  Abbe 


336  THE  PEASANTRY. 

Brossette,  were,  in  fact,  endeavoring  to  help  the  people.  They 
had  thought  out  their  plans  carefully  ;  they  desired  to  show  in 
a  practical  and  unmistakable  fashion  that  those  who  were 
plundering  them  would  do  better  for  themselves  by  earning 
an  honest  livelihood.  They  gave  out  hemp  to  be  spun,  and 
paid  for  the  work,  and  the  countess  had  the  thread  woven  into 
hessian  for  kitchen  cloths,  dusters,  and  aprons,  and  shirts  for 
the  very  poor.  The  count  undertook  improvements,  drawing 
all  his  laborers  from  the  neighboring  communes.  The  details 
were  left  to  Sibilet,  and  the  Abbe  Brossette  informed  the 
countess  of  cases  of  poverty,  and  brought  them  under  her 
notice.  Mme.  de  Montcornet  held  her  assizes  of  mercy  in 
the  great  hall  above  the  steps.  It  was  a  beautiful  vestibule, 
paved  with  marble  red  and  white ;  an  ornamental  majolica 
stove  stood  in  it,  and  the  long  benches  were  covered  with  red 
velvet. 

Thither  one  morning  before  the  harvest  came  old  Granny 
Tonsard  with  her  granddaughter  Catherine ;  she  had  a  terrible 
confession  to  make  touching  the  honor  of  a  poor  but  honest 
family.  While  she  spoke,  Catherine  stood  like  a  guilty  thing, 
and  then  in  her  turn  she  told  of  her  "  strait."  Nobody  knew 
of  it  but  her  grandmother,  she  said  ;  her  mother  would  drive 
her  out  of  the  house ;  her  father,  a  man  of  honor,  would  kill 
her.  If  she  had  but  a  thousand  francs,  there  was  a  poor 
laborer  named  Godain  who  was  willing  to  marry  her;  he 
knew  all,  and  he  loved  her  like  a  brother.  He  would  buy  a 
bit  of  waste-land  and  build  a  cottage  upon  it.  It  was  touch- 
ing. The  countess  promised  to  set  aside  a  sum  of  money, 
the  price  of  a  sacrificed  whim,  for  a  marriage  portion.  The 
two  happy  marriages  of  Michaud  and  Groison  had  encouraged 
her  in  match-making ;  and,  beside,  this  wedding  was  to  set  a 
good  example  to  the  peasants,  and  a  higher  standard  of  con- 
duct. So  a  marriage  was  arranged  between  Godain  and 
Catherine  by  means  of  Mme.  de  Montcornet's  money. 

Another  time  it  was  Granny  Bonne'bault,  a  horrible  old 


THE  PEASANTRY.  337 

woman,  who  lived  in  a  cabin  between  the  Conches  gate  and 
the  village,  who  came  with  a  load  of  hanks  of  spun  hemp. 

"The  countess  has  worked  miracles,"  said  the  abbe,  full  of 
hope  for  the  moral  improvement  of  these  savages.  "  That 
woman  used  to  do  a  great  deal  of  damage  in  your  woods ;  but 
now,  why  should  she  go  ?  She  spins  from  morning  to  night ; 
she  is  busy,  and  earning  money." 

The  country  was  quiet.  Groison  brought  in  satisfactory 
reports,  the  wood-stealing  seemed  to  be  almost  at  an  end ; 
perhaps,  indeed,  a  real  transformation  might  have  been 
wrought,  but  for  Gaubertin's  rancorous  greed,  but  for  the 
petty  cabals  of  the  "best  society"  of  Soulanges,  but  for 
Rigou's  intrigues,  which  fanned  the  flames  of  hate  and  crime 
smouldering  in  the  minds  of  the  peasants  of  the  valley. 

The  foresters,  however,  complained  that  they  found  many 
branches  gashed  with  the  billhook  in  the  forest ;  evidently 
somebody  intended  to  find  dead-wood  for  winter  fuel.  But 
their  efforts  to  discover  those  persons  were  fruitless.  The 
count  with  Groison's  assistance  had  given  paupers'  certificates 
to  the  thirty  or  forty  who  really  needed  them  ;  but  other 
communes  had  been  less  particular.  The  count  was  deter- 
mined that  after  his  late  clemency  in  the  matter  of  the  arrests 
at  Conches,  the  regulations  as  to  the  harvest  must  be  strictly 
enforced,  for  gleaning  had  degenerated  into  robbery.  With 
the  three  farms  which  he  had  let  on  lease  he  did  not  concern 
himself;  but  he  had  half  a  dozen  smaller  farms  which  paid 
rent  in  kind  on  the  system  of  division  of  produce  between 
landlord  and  tenant,  and  on  these  he  meant  to  take  his  stand. 
He  had  given  notice  that  any  one  who  should  enter  a  field 
before  the  last  sheaf  had  been  carted  away  should  be  prose- 
cuted ;  an  order  which  interested  no  other  farmer  in  the  com- 
mune ;  for  Rigou,  who  knew  the  country  well,  used  to  let  his 
arable  land  in  little  plots  and  on  short  leases  to  men  who 
reaped  their  own  crops  themselves ;  he  stipulated  that  his 
rents  should  be  paid  in  grain,  the  abuse  of  gleaning  did  not 
22 


338  THE  PEASANTRY. 

affect  him.     Nor  did  it  affect  the  remaining  farmers,  for  peas- 
ant proprietors  let  each  other  alone. 

The  count  had  instructed  Sibilet  to  see  that  his  tenants  cut 
their  corn  in  succession,  and  to  put  all  the  harvesters  to  work 
at  once  on  the  same  farm,  so  that  it  might  be  easier  to  keep 
a  watch  upon  them.  This  plan  had  been  suggested  by  Groi- 
son,  who  was  to  superintend  the  influx  of  gleaners  into  every 
field.  The  count  went  in  person  with  Michaud  to  see  it  in 
operation. 

Town-dwellers  would  never  imagine  what  the  gleaning 
means  to  country  people ;  indeed,  the  French  peasant's  passion 
for  gleaning  is  quite  inexplicable,  for  women  will  leave  well- 
paid  work  to  pick  up  stray  ears  in  the  fields.  The  corn 
gleaned  in  this  way  appears  to  have  peculiar  virtue  in  it,  and 
the  provision  thus  made  for  the  more  substantial  part  of  their 
daily  food  has  an  immense  attraction  for  them.  Mothers 
bring  toddling  children  with  their  older  girls  and  boys;  the 
most  decrepit  old  people  drag  themselves  to  the  fields ;  and, 
as  might  be  expected,  those  who  are  not  really  poor  will  feign 
poverty  and  go  a-gleaning  in  rags. 

The  count  and  Michaud  had  ridden  out  to  watch  the 
onslaught  of  the  tattered  crowd  upon  the  first  field  of  the 
first  farm. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  on  a  hot  August  morning,  the  cloudless 
sky  above  was  blue  as  periwinkle  blossoms,  the  earth  was 
burning,  the  wheat  fields  blazed  like  flame,  the  sun  beat  down 
on  the  hard  soil  which  reflected  the  heat  up  in  waves  to  scorch 
the  faces  of  the  reapers  who,  with  shirts  wet  with  perspiration, 
toiled  in  silence,  only  stopping  now  and  again  to  drink  from 
their  round,  loaf-shaped  stone  water-bottles,  cruses  with  two 
ears,  and  a  rough  spout  stoppered  by  a  peg  of  willow. 

At  the  edge  of  the  stubble-field,  where  the  last  sheaves 
were  being  piled  on  the  wagons,  stood  a  hundred  human 
beings,  who,  in  their  wretchedness,  surely  left  the  most  hideous 
conceptions  of  a  Murillo  or  a  Teniers  far  behind.  Here  were 


THE  PEASANTRY.  339 

the  most  daring  pictures  of  beggary,  and  faces  such  as  a 
Callot,  the  poet  of  misery  in  its  most  fantastic  phases,  has 
drawn  to  the  life.  Here  were  the  limbs  of  bronze,  the  bald 
heads,  the  strangely  degraded  tints,  the  tattered  greasy  rags 
— darned,  patched,  stained,  discolored,  worn  down  to  the  bare 
threads.  Here,  in  short,  the  painter's  ideal  of  the  trappings 
of  misery  was  overtopped,  even  as  those  faces,  in  their  anxiety, 
greed,  imbecility,  idiocy,  and  savagery,  surpassed  the  immortal 
creations  of  the  princes  of  color,  in  that  they  possessed  the 
immortal  advantage  of  Nature  over  Art.  There  stood  old 
crones,  with  red  lashless  eyelids,  stretching  out  their  turkey's 
throats  like  pointers  putting  up  a  partridge ;  there  stood 
children  mute  as  sentinels  on  guard,  and  little  girls  stamping 
with  impatience  like  animals  waiting  to  be  let  out  to  pas- 
ture; every  characteristic  of  infancy  and  age  was  obliter- 
ated by  a  common  frenzy  of  greed  in  all  faces;  all  coveted 
their  neighbor's  goods,  which  long  abuse  had  made  their  own. 
Their  eyes  glared,  they  made  many  threatening  gestures,  but 
none  of  them  spoke  in  the  presence  of  the  count,  the  police- 
man, and  the  head-forester.  The  landowner,  the  farmer,  the 
worker,  and  the  pauper  were  all  represented  there,  and  the  social 
problem  behind  the  scene  was  outlined  very  clearly,  for  hunger 
had  summoned  those  threatening  figures.  Every  hard  feature, 
every  hollow  in  their  faces  was  brought  into  relief  by  the  sun- 
light which  scorched  their  bare  dusty  feet ;  some  of  the 
children  had  no  clothing  but  a  ragged  blouse,  and  their  flaxen 
curls  were  full  of  bits  of  wood,  straw,  and  hay,  and  here  and 
there  a  woman  held  by  the  hand  a  mere  baby  which  could 
scarcely  toddle,  to  be  put  down  presently  to  crawl  along  the 
furrows. 

This  dreadful  picture  was  intolerable  to  an  old  soldier  with 
a  kind  heart.  The  general  spoke  to  Michaud. 

"  It  hurts  me  to  see  them.  If  we  did  not  know  all  that 
was  involved  in  these  measures,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
persist." 


340  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  If  every  landowner  were  to  follow  your  example,  general, 
and  live  on  his  estate,  and  do  good  as  you  are  doing,  I  do 
not  say  that  there  would  be  no  poor,  for  we  have  the  poor 
always  with  us,  but  there  would  be  no  one  who  could  not 
make  an  honest  living." 

"  The  mayors  of  Conches,  Cerneux,  and  Soulanges  have 
sent  us  their  paupers,"  said  Groison,  who  had  been  verifying 
the  certificates  ;  "  they  ought  not  to  do  that." 

"No,"  said  the  count,  "but  our  paupers  will  go  to  glean 
in  their  communes;  it  is  enough  for  the  present  if  they  do  not 
help  themselves  from  the  sheaves.  We  must  take  one  step  at 
a  time,"  and  he  went  away. 

"Did  you  hear  that?"  asked  Granny  Tonsard,  turning  to 
Bonnebault's  mother.  The  count  happening  to  raise  his 
voice  a  little  over  the  last  words,  they  reached  the  ears  of  one 
of  the  two  old  crones  who  were  posted  on  the  road  by  the 
edge  of  the  field. 

"Yes,  that  is  not  all;  a  tooth  to-day,  an  ear  to-morrow;  if 
they  could  invent  a  sauce  for  it,  they  would  eat  us  up ;  a  calf  s 
liver  or  a  Christian's  would  be  all  the  same  to  them,"  said 
Granny  Bonnebault. 

She  lifted  up  her  malignant  features  as  the  general  passed ; 
but  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  a  hypocritical  expression  of 
honeyed  amiability  overspread  her  face,  and  with  an  ingratia- 
ting grin  she  hastily  made  a  deep  curtsey. 

"What !  are  you  gleaning  too,  when  my  wife  has  put  you 
in  the  way  of  earning  plenty  of  money?" 

"  Eh  !  God  keep  you  in  health,  my  dear  gentleman  !     But,' 
you  see,  that  lad  of  mine  eats  everything  up,  and  I  be  forced 
to  hide  away  this  little  mite  of  corn  to  have  bread  to  eat  in 
the  winter.     So  I  be  gleaning  again  for  a  bit — it  all  helps  !  " 
said  the  old  woman. 

The  gleaners  made  little  that  year.  When  the  farmers  and 
crofters  knew  that  they  would  be  supported,  they  cut  their 
corn  carefully  and  looked  after  the  sheaves,  and  saw  that  the 


THE  PEASANTRY.  341 

fields  were  clear,  in  such  a  sort  that  there  was,  at  any  rate, 
less  of  the  open  robbery  of  previous  harvests. 

This  year,  too,  the  gleaners  looked  in  vain  for  the  wheat 
which  always  made  a  certain  proportion  of  their  bundles ;  and 
impostors  and  paupers,  who  had  forgotten  their  pardon  at 
Conches,  cherished  in  consequence  a  smothered  feeling  of 
discontent,  embittered  in  tavern  talk  by  the  Tonsards,  by 
Courtecuisse,  Bonnebault,  Laroche,  Vaudoyer,  Godain,  and 
their  following.  Matters  grew  worse  after  the  vintage,  for  no 
one  was  allowed  to  go  into  the  vineyards  until  the  grapes  were 
all  cut  and  the  vines  had  been  very  closely  picked  over; 
Sibilet  had  seen  to  that.  This  exasperated  the  peasants  to 
the  last  degree ;  but  when  there  is  so  great  a  gulf  set  between 
the  class  which  rises  in  menace  and  the  class  which  is  threat- 
ened, words  are  not  carried  across  it ;  deeds  are  the  only  sign 
of  the  matters  which  are  brewing,  and  the  malcontents  betake 
themselves  to  work  underground  like  moles. 

The  fair  at  Soulanges  went  off  quietly  enough  save  for  some 
amenities  that  passed  between  the  best  society  and  the  second- 
rate,  thanks  to  the  queen's  uneasy  despotism.  It  was  intoler- 
able to  her  that  the  fair  Euphemie  Plissoud  should  reign  over 
the  brilliant  Lupin's  heart,  when  his  fickle  affections  should 
have  been  centred  upon  herself. 

The  count  and  countess  had  appeared  neither  at  the  fair 
nor  at  the  Tivoli,  and  this  was  counted  as  a  crime  by  the 
Soudrys  and  Gaubertins  and  their  adherents.  It  was  all  pride 
and  superciliousness,  so  they  said  in  Mme.  Soudry's  drawing- 
room. 

Meanwhile  the  countess  was  filling  up  the  blank  left  by 
Emile's  absence  by  the  great  interest  which  noble  natures 
take  in  the  good  which  they  try  to  do ;  and  the  count  threw 
no  less  zeal  into  the  improvements*  on  his  estate,  which  he 
intended  to  effect  a  corresponding  improvement  both  material 
and  moral  in  the  people  of  the  district.  Little  by  little,  with 
the  help  of  the  Abbe  Brossette,  Mme.  de  Montcornet  came  to 


342  THE  PEASANTRY. 

have  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the  circumstances  of  the  poor 
families,  of  their  requirements  and  their  means  of  subsistence, 
and  learned  how  much  thoughtful  care  was  needed  to  give 
them  assistance  by  helping  them  to  work,  lest  they  should  be 
encouraged  in  lazy  or  vicious  habits. 

The  countess  had  placed  Genevieve  Nlseron  in  a  convent, 
under  the  pretext  of  having  her  taught  to  do  needlework  suf- 
ficiently well  to  be  employed  in  her  household ;  but  in  reality 
Genevieve  was  sent  out  of  reach  of  Nicolas  Tonsard,  whom 
Rigou  had  managed  to  exempt  from  military  service.  The 
countess  thought,  moreover,  that  a  devout  education,  and  the 
guarded  seclusion  of  the  convent,  would  sooner  or  later  quell 
the  ardent  passions  of  a  precocious  child  whose  fiery  Mon- 
tenegrin blood  seemed  at  times  to  threaten  to  break  into  a 
flame  which  might  consume  her  faithful  Olympe  Michaud's 
happiness. 

So  there  was  tranquillity  at  the  Aigues.  The  count,  reas- 
sured by  Michaud  and  lulled  into  security  by  Sibilet,  con- 
gratulated himself  upon  his  firmness,  and  thanked  his  wife  for 
contributing  by  her  beneficence  to  the  great  result  of  their 
tranquillity.  As  for  the  sale  of  the  timber,  the  general  held 
the  question  over  till  he  could  return  to  Paris  and  arrange  in 
person  with  wood  merchants.  He  had  not  the  slightest  idea 
of  the  way  in  which  the  business  was  carried  on,  and  was  far 
from  suspecting  the  extent  of  Gaubertin's  influence  along  the 
Yonne,  or  that  the  mayor  of  Ville-aux-Fayes  supplied  the 
larger  part  of  Paris  with  fuel. 


VII. 

THE   GREYHOUND. 

About  the  middle  of  September,  Emile  came  back  to  the 
Aigues.  He  had  gone  to  Paris  to  arrange  for  the  publication 
of  a  book,  and  now  he  meant  to  rest  and  to  think  over  the 


THE  PEASANTRY.  343 

work  which  he  was  planning  for  the  winter.  At  the  Aigues 
the  wearied  journalist  disappeared,  and  Emile  Blondet  became 
once  more  frank,  fresh-hearted,  as  in  the  days  of  his  early 
manhood. 

"What  a  beautiful  nature!  "  said  the  count  and  countess 
when  they  spoke  of  him. 

Men  accustomed  to  knock  about  in  the  world,  to  see  the 
seamy  side  of  life,  and  to  gather  in  experience  of  all  kinds 
without  restraint,  make  an  oasis  in  their  hearts,  and  leave 
their  own  evil  tendencies  and  those  of  others  outside  it. 
Within  a  narrow  charmed  circle  they  become  saints  in  minia- 
ture j  they  have  a  woman's  sensitiveness,  with  their  whole 
souls  they  strive  for  a  momentary  realization  of  their  ideal, 
and  for  the  one  soul  in  the  world  who  worships  them  they 
raise  themselves  to  angelic  heights.  Nor  are  they  playing  a 
comedy.  They  turn  the  inner  self  out  to  grass,  as  it  were ; 
they  crave  to  have  the  stains  of  mud  brushed  off,  their  bruises 
healed,  and  their  wounds  bound.  When  Emile  Blondet  came 
to  the  Aigues  he  left  malice  behind,  and  with  it  most  of  his 
wit,  not  an  epigram  did  he  utter,  he  was  as  mild  as  a  lamb 
and  suavely  platonic. 

"  He  is  such  a  good  young  fellow  that  I  miss  him  when  he 
is  not  here,"  the  general  used  to  say.  "  I  should  dearly  like 
him  to  make  his  fortune  and  give  up  that  Paris  life." 

Never  had  the  glorious  landscape  and  the  park  at  the  Aigues 
been  more  luxuriantly  beautiful  than  in  those  September  days. 
In  the  earliest  autumn  weather,  when  earth  is  weary  of  bring- 
ing forth  her  fruits  and  fills  the  air  in  the  empty  fields  and 
orchards  with  the  delicious  scent  of  leaves,  the  forests  are  the 
most  wonderful  sight  of  all,  for  then  they  begin  to  take 
bronze-green  hues  and  warm  ochre  tints,  to  blend  in  the  fair 
tapestry  beneath  which  they  hide,  as  if  to  defy  the  coming 
cold  of  winter. 

Earth  in  the  spring  looked  gay  and  joyous,  a  dark-haired 
maid  who  hopes  and  looks  forward ;  Earth  in  the  autumn, 


344  THE  PEASANTRY. 

grown  melancholy  and  mild,  is  a  fair-haired  woman  who 
remembers.  The  grass  grows  golden,  the  heads  of  the 
autumn  flowers  are  crowned  with  pale  petals,  the  white  daisies 
look  up  seldom  now  from  the  lawn,  and  you  see  the  purplish- 
green  calices  instead.  There  is  yellow  color  everywhere. 
The  trees  cast  thinner  and  darker  shadows ;  the  sun,  slanting 
lower  already,  steals  under  them  to  leave  faint  gleams  of 
orange  color  and  long  luminous  shafts,  which  vanish  swiftly 
over  the  ground  like  the  trailing  robes  'of  women  departing. 

On  the  morning  of  the  second  day  after  his  arrival,  Emile 
stood  at  the  window  of  his  room,  which  gave  upon  one  of  the 
terraces  from  which  there  was  a  beautiful  view.  The  countess' 
apartments  were  likewise  upon  the  terrace,  and  faced  the 
view  toward  Blangy  and  the  forests.  The  pond  (which  nearer 
Paris  would  have  been  styled  a  lake)  and  its  long  channel  were 
almost  out  of  sight,  but  the  silver  spring  which  rose  in  the 
wood  near  the  hunting-lodge  crossed  the  lawn  like  a  silken 
ribbon  covered  with  bright  spangles  of  sand. 

Beyond  the  park  palings  lay  fields  where  cattle  were  grazing, 
and  little  properties,  full  of  walnut  and  apple-trees,  inclosed 
by  hedges,  stood  out  against  the  hillside,  covered  with  the 
walls  and  houses  and  cultivated  land  of  Blangy,  and,  higher 
yet,  ridges  covered  with  tall  forest  trees  rose  up  stepwise  to 
the  heights  which  framed  the  whole  picture. 

The  countess  had  come  out  upon  the  terrace  to  see  her 
flowers,  which  filled  the  air  with  their  morning  fragrance. 
She  wore  a  loose  cambric  wrapper,  through  which  her  pretty 
shoulders  sent  a  faint  rose  flush  ;  a  dainty  cap  sat  piquantly 
on  her  hair,  which  strayed  rebelliously  from  beneath  it ;  her 
little  foot  shone  through  the  transparent  stocking ;  and,  when- 
ever the  wind  stirred,  it  fluttered  her  thin  dressing-gown, 
giving  glimpses  of  an  embroidered  cambric  petticoat  carelessly 
fastened  over  her  corset. 

"  Oh,  are  you  there?"  asked  she. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  345 


Yes- 


"  What  are  you  looking  at  ?  " 

"  What  a  question  to  ask !  You  have  snatched  me  from 
the  contemplation  of  nature.  Tell  me,  countess,  will  you 
take  a  walk  in  the  woods  this  morning  before  breakfast?" 

"  What  an  idea !  You  know  that  I  hold  walks  in  abhor- 
rence." 

"  We  will  only  walk  a  very  short  way.  I  will  drive  you  in 
the  tilbury,  and  Joseph  can  come  with  us  to  look  after  it. 
You  never  set  foot  in  your  forest,  and  I  notice  something  odd 
in  it :  little  groups  of  trees  here  and  there  have  turned  the 
color  of  Florentine  bronze ;  the  leaves  are  withering " 

"Very  well,  I  will  dress  at  once." 

"  We  should  not  start  for  two  hours  !  No.  Take  a  shawl 
and  a  hat and  thick  shoes,  that  is  all  that  is  really  neces- 
sary." 

"  You  must  always  have  your  way I  will  come  back 

in  one  moment." 

"General,  we  are  going  out,  will  you  come  with  us?" 
called  Blondet,  going  away  to  waken  the  count,  who  replied 
by  the  grunt  of  a  man  still  locked  in  morning  slumber. 

Fifteen  minutes  later  the  tilbury  was  moving  slowly  along 
one  of  the  broad  avenues  through  the  park,  followed  at  a  dis- 
tance by  a  stalwart  servant  on  horseback. 

It  was  a  true  September  morning.  Spaces  of  dark-blue  sky 
shone  in  a  cloud-dappled  heaven,  as  if  they,  and  not  the 
clouds,  were  flitting  over  the  ether  of  space.  Long  streaks 
of  ultramarine  blue,  alternating  with  folds  of  cloud,  lay  like 
ribs  of  sand  low  down  on  the  horizon,  and  higher  up,  above 
the  forest,  a  greenish  tint  overspread  the  sky.  Earth  lay  warm 
under  the  cloudy  covering,  like  a  woman  just  awakened.  The 
forest  scents  were  mingled  with  the  scent  of  the  ploughed 
land,  a  wild  savor  in  the  steaming  fragrance  of  the  soil.  The 
bell  was  ringing  for  the  Angelus  at  Blangy ;  the  notes,  blended 
with  the  mysterious  sound  of  the  wind  in  the  woods,  made  har- 


346  THE  PEASANTRY. 

mony  with  the  silence.     Here  and  there  thin  white  mists  were 
rising. 

Olympe  Michaud,  seeing  these  fair  preparations  for  the  day, 
took  it  into  her  head  to  go  out  with  her  husband,  who  was 
obliged  to  give  an  order  to  one  of  the  keepers  who  lived  a 
short  distance  away.  The  Soulanges  doctor  had  recommended 
her  to  take  walks  without  overtiring  herself,  but  she  was  afraid 
of  the  heat  at  noon  and  did  not  care  to  venture  out  in  the 
evening.  Michaud  went  with  her,  and  took  his  favorite  dog, 
a  mouse-colored  greyhound  spotted  with  white ;  greedy,  like 
all  greyhounds,  and  full  of  faults,  like  all  animals  who  know 
they  are  loved  and  have  the  gift  of  pleasing. 

So  it  happened  that  when  the  tilbury  reached  the  hunting- 
lodge  and  the  countess  inquired  after  Mine.  Michaud's  health, 
she  was  told  that  Olympe  had  gone  into  the  forest  with  her 
husband. 

"This  weather  inspires  the  same  thought  in  everyone," 
said  Blondet,  turning  the  horse  into  one  of  the  six  roads  at 
random.  "  By-the-by,  Joseph,  do  you  know  the  forest  ?  " 

"Yes,  sir." 

And  away  they  went.  The  avenue  which  they  had  chosen 
was  one  of  the  loveliest  in  the  forest ;  after  a  little  while  it 
swerved  round  and  became  a  narrow  winding  track.  The  sun 
shone  down  into  it  through  the  chinks  in  the  leafy  roof,  which 
closed  it  in  like  a  green  bower  ;  the  breeze  brought  the  scent 
of  thyme  and  lavender  and  wild  peppermint,  and  sounds  of 
dead  branches  and  leaves  falling  to  earth  with  a  rustling  sigh  ; 
the  drops  of  dew  scattered  over  the  leaves  and  grass  were 
shaken  and  fell  as  the  light  carriage  went  past.  The  farther 
the  two  travelers  went,  the  deeper  they  penetrated  into  the 
mysterious  fantasies  of  the  forest ;  into  cool  depths  where 
the  leaves  grow  in  the  damp  and  darkness,  and  the  light  that 
enters  turns  to  velvet  as  it  dies  away ;  through  clearer  spaces 
of  graceful  birch-trees  gathered  about  their  over-lord,  the 
Hercules  of  the  forest,  a  hundred-year-old  beech ;  through 


THE  PEASANTRY.  347 

assemblies  of  grand  tree-trunks,  knotted,  mossy,  pale-colored, 
riven  with  deep  furrows,  tracing  gigantic  blurred  shadows 
over  the  ground.  Along  the  side  of  the  way  they  took  grew 
a  border  of  thin  grass  and  delicate  flowers.  The  streams  had 
singing  voices.  Surely  it  is  an  unspeakable  delight  to  drive  along 
forest  tracks,  slippery  with  moss,  when  the  woman  by  your 
side  clings  to  you  in  real  or  simulated  terror  at  every  up  and 
down  of  the  road.  You  feel  the  fresh  warmth,  the  involuntary 
or  deliberate  pressure,  of  her  arm,  the  weight  of  a  soft  white 
shoulder,  she  begins  to  smile  if  you  tell  her  that  she  is  bring- 
ing you  to  a  standstill,  and  the  horse  seems  to  understand 
these  interruptions  and  looks  to  right  and  left. 

The  countess  grew  dreamy.  The  sight  of  this  forest  world, 
so  vigorous  in  its  effects,  so  unfamiliar  and  so  grand,  was  new 
to  her.  She  leaned  back  in  the  tilbury  and  gave  herself  up 
to  the  pleasure  of  being  beside  Emile.  His  eyes  were  occu- 
pied, his  heart  spoke  to  hers,  and  a  voice  within  her  gave 
response.  Emile  stole  a  glance  at  her,  and  enjoyed  her  mood 
of  meditative  dreaming.  The  ribbon-strings  of  her  hood 
had  come  unfastened,  and  given  to  the  morning  wind  the 
silken  curls  of  her  fair  hair  in  luxuriant  abandonment.  They 
drove  on  as  chance  directed,  and  in  consequence  were  con- 
fronted by  a  closed  gate  across  the  road.  They  had  not  the 
key ;  and  Joseph,  when  summoned,  proved  to  be  likewise 
unprovided. 

"  Very  well,  let  us  walk.  Joseph  shall  stay  here  with  the 
tilbury  ;  we  shall  easily  find  our  way  back." 

Emile  and  the  countess  plunged  into  the  forest  and  reached 
a  spot  whence  they  saw  a  little  landscape  set  in  the  woods, 
such  a  scene  as  you  often  see  in  a  great  forest.  Twenty  years 
ago  the  charcoal-burners  had  cleared  the  space  for  their  char- 
coal kiln,  burning  everything  for  a  considerable  area  round 
about,  and  the  trees  had  not  grown  again.  But  in  twenty 
years  Nature  had  had  time  to  make  a  flower  garden  there ; 
and,  even  as  a  painter  will  paint  some  one  picture  for  himself, 


348  THE  PEASANTRY. 

she  had  made  a  garden  of  her  own.  Tall  trees  grew  round 
about  that  delicious  plaisance ;  their  crests  drooped  over  it  in 
a  deep  fringe,  like  a  great  canopy  above  the  couch  where  the 
goddess  reposes. 

The  charcoal-burners  had  beaten  a  path  to  the  edge  of  a 
pool  of  water,  always  clear  and  full  to  the  brim.  The  path 
still  existed,  tempting  you  to  follow  it  by  a  coquettish  bend, 
till  suddenly  it  was  rent  across,  displaying  a  sheer  surface  of 
earth,  where  myriads  of  tree  roots,  exposed  to  the  air,  grew 
interwoven  like  canvas  for  tapestry  work.  Short  green  turf 
surrounded  the  lonely  pool,  a  few  willows  and  an  aspen  here 
and  there  spread  a  light  veil  of  shadow  over  a  bank  of  soft 
grass,  laid  down  by  some  meditative  or  ease-loving  charcoal- 
burner.  Frogs  leap  and  tadpoles  swim  undisturbed,  moor- 
hens and  water-fowl  come  and  go,  a  hare  flies  from  your 
presence,  the  delightful  bathing-place,  decked  with  the  tallest 
of  green  rushes,  is  at  your  disposal.  The  trees  above  your 
head  take  many  shapes ;  here  a  trunk  raises  its  head  like  a 
boa-constrictor,  there  the  beeches  shoot  up  straight  and  tall 
as  Grecian  columns,  to  their  green  crests.  Slugs  and  snails 
promenade  in  peace,  a  tench  shows  its  nose  above  the  surface 
of  the  pool,  a  squirrel  eyes  you  curiously. 

When  Emile  and  the  countess  sat  down  to  rest  at  last,  some 
bird  broke  the  silence  with  an  autumn  song — a  song  of  fare- 
well to  which  all  the  other  birds  listened,  one  of  those  songs 
which  awaken  passionate  response  in  the  listener  and  appeal 
to  all  the  senses. 

"How  silent  it-  is !  "  said  the  countess;  she  felt  moved, 
and  lowered  her  voice  as  if  she  feared  to  trouble  that  peace. 

They  gazed  at  the  green  patches  on  the  water,  little  worlds 
of  growing  and  living  organisms,  and  bade  each  other  see  the 
lizard  basking  in  the  sun  ;  at  their  approach  it  fled,  justifying 
its  nickname — the  "friend  of  man."  "Which  proves  how 
well  he  knows  man  !  "  commented  Emile.  They  watched 
the  bolder  frogs  return  to  the  bed  of  cresses  by  the  water's 


THE  PEASANTRY.  349 

edge,  and  show  their  eyes  sparkling  like  carbuncles.  The 
sense  of  the  simple  and  tender  mystery  of  nature  passed  little 
by  little  into  these  two  souls,  on  whom  the  artificialities  of 
the  world  had  palled,  and  steeped  them  in  a  mood  of  contem- 
plative emotion when  suddenly  Blondet  shuddered  and 

leaned  toward  the  countess  to  whisper — 

"Do  you  hear  that?" 

"What?" 

"  A  strange  sound." 

"Just  like  these  literary  people,  who  stay  in  their  studies 
and  know  nothing  of  the  country.  That  is  a  woodpecker 
making  a  hole  in  a  tree.  I  will  wager  that  you  do  not  even 
know  the  most  curious  thing  about  the  woodpecker.  Every 
time  that  he  gives  a  tap  (and  he  gives  hundreds  of  taps  to 
hollow  out  an  oak  twice  as  thick  as  your  body),  he  goes  round 
to  the  back  of  it  to  see  if  he  has  pierced  a  hole  through." 

"That  noise,  dear  lecturer  on  natural  history,  was  not 
made  by  a  bird ;  there  was  that  indescribable  something  in 
it  which  reveals  a  human  intelligence  at  work." 

The  countess  was  seized  with  a  panic  of  fear.  She  fled 
across  the  little  wild  garden,  reached  the  path  again,  and 
seemed  bent  on  flight  from  the  forest. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  cried  Blondet,  hurrying  after  her 
anxiously. 

"I  thought  that  I  saw  eyes,"  she  said,  when  they  had 
gained  one  of  the  paths  by  which  they  had  come  to  the  clear- 
ing made  by  the  charcoal-burners. 

Even  as  she  spoke,  they  both  heard  another  sound — the 
dying  moan  of  some  creature,  a  stifled  sound,  as  if  its  throat 
had  been  suddenly  cut.  The  countess'  fears  were  redoubled  ; 
she  fled  so  swiftly  that  Blondet  could  scarcely  keep  pace  with 
her.  On  and  on  she  fled,  like  a  will-of-the  wisp ;  she  did  not 
hear  Emile's  cry — "It  is  a  mistake!"  Still  she  ran,  and 
Blondet,  instead  of  overtaking  her,  fell  more  and  more  behind. 

At  length  they  came  upon  Michaud  walking  with  his  wife 


350  THE  PEASANTRY. 

on  his  arm.  Emile  was  panting,  and  the  countess  so  much 
out  of  breath  that  it  was  some  time  before  they  could  speak 
and  explain  what  had  happened.  Michaud,  like  Blondet, 
scoffed  at  the  lady's  fears,  and  put  the  straying  pair  in  the 
way  to  find  the  tilbury.  When  they  reached  the  bar  across 
the  road,  Olympe  Michaud  called  to  the  dog. 

"Prince!  Prince!"  shouted  the  forester.  He  whistled 
and  whistled  again,  but  no  dog  appeared.  Then  Emile 
mentioned  the  mysterious  sounds  with  which  the  adventure 
began. 

"  My  wife  heard  the  sound,"  said  Michaud,  "and  I  laughed 
at  her." 

"Someone  has  killed  Prince !"  cried  the  countess.  "I 
am  sure  of  it  now ;  they  must  have  cut  his  throat  at  a  stroke, 
for  the  sound  which  I  heard  was  the  dying  groan  of  some 
animal." 

"The  devil!"  said  Michaud;  "this  is  worth  looking 
into." 

Emile  and  the  forester  left  the  two  women  with  Joseph  and 
the  horses,  and  turned  back  into  the  cleared  space.  They 
went  down  to  the  pond,  searched  among  the  knolls,  and  found 
not  a  sign  nor  a  trace  of  the  dog.  Blondet  was  the  first  to 
climb  the  bank  again ;  and  noticing  a  tree  with  withered 
leaves,  he  called  Michaud's  attention  to  it,  and  determined  to 
examine  it  for  himself.  The  two  men  struck. out  a  straight 
line  through  the  forest,  avoiding  the  fallen  trunks,  dense  holly 
thickets,  and  brambles  in  their  way,  and  reached  the  tree  in 
question. 

"It  is  a  fine  elm,"  said  Michaud,  "but  there  is  a  wood- 
worm at  the  root  of  it — a  worm  has  ringed  the  bark  at  the 
foot."  He  stooped  down  and  lifted  up  the  bark:  "There, 
only  see  what  work  !  " 

"There  are  a  good  many  wood-worms  in  this  forest  of 
yours,"  said  Blondet. 

As  he  spoke,  Michaud  saw  a  red  drop  a  few  paces  away, 


THE  PEASANTRY.  351 

and  farther  yet  his  greyhound's  head.  He  heaved  a  sigh. 
"  The  rascals  ! — my  lady  was  right." 

Blondet  and  Michaud  went  up  to  the  body.  The  countess 
was  right.  The  dog's  throat  had  been  cut.  Prince  had  been 
coaxed  by  a  bit  of  pickled  pork  to  prevent  him  from  barking, 
for  the  morsel  lay  half  swallowed  between  the  tongue  and 
the  palate. 

"  Poor  brute,  his  weakness  caused  his  death." 

"Exactly  the  way  with  princes,"  said  Blondet. 

"  Some  one  was  here  who  did  not  want  to  be  found  here, 
and  made  off,"  said  Michaud,  "  so  there  is  something  seriously 
wrong.  And  yet  I  see  no  branches  broken  nor  trees  cut 
down." 

Blondet  and  the  forester  began  a  careful  investigation, 
looking  over  every  inch  of  ground  before  setting  down  their 
feet.  At  last  Emile  found  that  some  one  had  been  kneeling 
under  a  tree  a  few  paces  away,  the  grass  was  trodden  down 
and  bent,  and  there  were  two  hollow  dints  in  the  moss. 

"  Some  one  has  been  kneeling  here,"  he  said,  "and  it  was 
a  woman,  for  a  man's  legs  would  not  have  crushed  so  much 
grass  below  the  knees;  look  at  the  outline  of  the  petticoat." 

The  forester  scanned  the  foot  of  the  tree,  and  saw  that  a 
wood-maggot  had  begun  its  work;  but  there  was  no  trace 
of  the  grub  itself,  with  the  tough  glistening  skin,  the  brown- 
tipped  scales,  the  tail  already  something  like  that  of  the 
cockchafer,  and  the  head  provided  with  antennae  and  two 
strong  jaws  with  which  the  insect  cuts  the  roots  of  plants. 

"Now,  my  dear  fellow,  I  can  understand  why  there  are 
such  a  quantity  of  dead  trees  in  the  forest.  I  noticed  them 
this  morning  from  the  terrace  at  the  castle,  and  came  here  on 
purpose  to  discover  the  cause  of  that  phenomenon.  The 
worms  are  stirring,  but  it  is  your  peasants  who  creep  out  of 
the  woods." 

The  head-forester  let  fly  an  oath.  Then,  followed  by 
Blondet,  he  hurried  to  find  the  countess,  and  begged  her  to 


352  THE  PEASANTRY. 

take  his  wife  home.  He  himself  took  Joseph's  horse,  leaving 
the  man  to  walk  back  to  the  castle,  and  galloped  off  to  inter- 
cept the  woman  who  had  killed  his  dog,  and  if  possible  to 
surprise  her  with  the  blood-stained  billhook  and  the  tool  with 
which  she  made  the  holes  in  the  trees.  Blondet  took  his  place 
between  Mme.  de  Montcornet  and  Olympe  Michaud,  and  told 
them  of  Prince's  end,  and  of  the  miserable  discovery  to  which 
it  had  led. 

"Oh,  dear!  "  cried  the  countess,  "let  us  tell  the  general 
about  it  before  breakfast,  or  anger  may  kill  him." 

"  I  will  break  the  news  to  him,"  said  Blondet. 

"They  have  killed  the  dog!  "  cried  Olympe,  drying  her 
tears. 

"  You  must  have  been  very  fond  of  Prince,  dear  child,  to 
shed  tears  for  a  dog  like  this,"  said  the  countess. 

"  I  look  upon  Prince's  death  simply  as  a  warning  of  trouble 
to  come ;  I  am  afraid  lest  anything  should  happen  to  my  hus- 
band." 

"  How  they  have  spoiled  this  morning  for  us  !"  said  the 
countess,  with  an  adorable  little  pout. 

"  How  they  are  spoiling  the  country  !  "  Olympe  said  sadly. 

At  the  park  gates  they  came  upon  the  general. 

"  Where  can  you  have  been  ?  "  asked  he. 

"You  shall  hear  directly,"  said  Blondet  mysteriously,  as  he 
helped  Mme.  Michaud  to  alight.  The  general  was  struck  by 
the  sadness  in  Olympe's  face. 

A  few  minutes  later,  Blondet  and  the  general  stood  on  the 
terrace. 

"You  have  plenty  of  moral  courage,"  said  Emile  Blondet; 
"  you  will  not  fly  into  a  passion,  will  you?  " 

"No,"  said  the  general,  "but  out  with  it,  or  I  shall  think 
that  you  want  to  laugh  at  me." 

"  Do  you  see  those  trees  with  the  dead  leaves  on  them?" 

"Yes." 

"And  those  others  that  are  turning  a  lighter  color?" 


THE  PEASANTRY.  353 

"Yes." 

"Very  well,  those  are  so  many  dead  trees;  so  many  trees 
killed  by  the  peasants  whom  you  thought  that  you  had  won 
over  by  your  kindness;  "  and  Blondet  told  the  tale  of  that 
morning's  adventures. 

The  general  grew  so  pale  that  Blondet  was  alarmed. 

"  Come,"  he  cried,  "curse  and  swear,  fly  into  a  rage!  re- 
pression may  perhaps  be  even  worse  for  you  than  an  outbreak 
of  anger." 

"I  shall  go  and  smoke,"  said  the  count,  and  off  he  went 
to  his  summer-house. 

Michaud  came  as  they  sat  at  breakfast ;  he  had  found  no- 
body. The  count  had  sent  for  Sibilet,  and  he  also  appeared. 

"Monsieur  Sibilet  and  Monsieur  Michaud,  let  it  be  known 
in  the  right  quarters  that  I  will  give  a  thousand  francs  to  any- 
body who  will  enable  me  to  detect  those  who  injure  my  trees 
at  their  work.  The  tool  with  which  they  work  must  be  dis- 
covered, and  the  place  where  it  was  purchased,  and — I  have  a 
plan  ready." 

"Those  people  never  sell  themselves  when  a  crime  has  been 
deliberately  committed  for  their  own  profit,"  said  Sibilet; 
"  for  there  is  no  denying  that  this  diabolical  invention  has 
been  deliberately  planned " 

"  Yes.  But  a  thousand  francs  means  one  or  two  acres  of 
land." 

"•We  will  try,"  said  Sibilet.  "For  fifteen  hundred  francs 
we  shall  find  a  traitor,  I  will  answer  for  it,  more  particularly 
if  we  keep  his  secret." 

"  But  we  must  all,  and  I  most  of  all,  act  as  though  we  knew 
nothing  about  it,"  said  the  count.  "  It  should  rather  be  you 
who  discover  it  without  my  knowledge  ;  they  must  not  know 
that  I  know,  or  we  may  fall  victims  to  some  new  combination. 
More  caution  is  needed  with  these  brigands  than  with  the 
enemy  in  time  of  war." 

"Why,  this  is  the  enemy,"  said  Blondet.  Sibilet  gave 
23 


354  THE  PEASANTRY. 

him  a  quick  furtive  glance ;  he  evidently  understood  the  re- 
mark and  he  went. 

"I  do  not  like  that  Sibilet  of  yours,"  Blondet  continued, 
when  he  had  heard  the  man  go  out  of  the  house;  "he  is  not 
to  be  trusted." 

"  I  have  had  no  reason  to  complain  of  him  so  far,"  said 
the  general. 

Blondet  went  to  write  some  letters.  He  had  quite  lost  the 
careless  high  spirits  of  his  first  visit,  and  looked  anxious  and 
preoccupied.  He  had  no  vague  forebodings  like  Mme. 
Michaud,  his  was  a  clear  vision  of  inevitable  troubles.  To 
himself  he  said — 

"All  this  will  come  to  a  bad  end;  and  if  the  general  does 
not  make  up  his  mind  at  once  to  retire  from  a  battlefield 
where  he  is  outnumbered,  there  will  be  many  victims.  Who 
knows  whether  he  himself  or  his  wife  will  come  out  safe  and 
sound  ?  Good  heavens  !  to  think  that  she  should  be  exposed 
to  such  risks,  so  adorable,  so  devoted,  so  perfect  as  she  is. 
And  he  thinks  that  he  loves  her !  Well,  I  will  share  their 
peril,  and,  if  I  cannot  save  them,  I  will  perish  with  them." 


VIII. 

RUSTIC  VIRTUES. 

At  nightfall  Marie  Tonsard  was  sitting  on  the  edge  of  a 
culvert  on  the  Soulanges  road,  waiting  for  Bonnebault,  who, 
according  to  his  usual  custom,  had  spent  the  day  at  the  cafe. 
She  heard  him  while  he  was  yet  some  distance  away,  and 
knew  from  his  footsteps  that  he  was  drunk  and  that  he  had 
lost  at  play,  for  he  used  to  sing  when  he  had  been  winning. 

"Is  that  you,  Bonnebault?" 

"Yes,  little  girl." 

"What  is  the  matter?" 


THE  PEASANTRY.  355 

"  I  have  lost  twenty-five  francs,  and  they  may  wring  my 
neck  twenty-five  times  before  I  shall  find  them." 

"  Well,  now,  there  is  a  way  for  us  to  make  five  hundred," 
she  said  in  his  ear. 

"  Oh  !  yes,  somebody  to  be  killed ;  but  I  have  a  mind  to 
live " 

"  Just  hold  your  tongue.  Vaudoyer  will  give  us  the  money 
if  you  will  let  them  catch  your  mother  at  a  tree " 

"I  would  rather  kill  a  man  than  sell  my  mother.  There 
is  your  own  Grandmother  Tonsard ;  why  don't  you  give  her 
up?" 

"  If  I  tried  it,  father  would  be  angry;  he  would  put  a  stop 
to  the  game." 

"That  is  true.  All  the  same,  my  mother  shall  not  go  to 
prison.  Poor  old  soul !  she  finds  me  clothes  and  victuals, 
how,  I  do  not  know.  Send  her  to  prison,  and  by  my  own 
doing  !  I  should  have  neither  heart  nor  bowels.  No,  no.  I 
shall  tell  her  this  evening  to  leave  off  barking  the  trees,  lest 
some  one  else  should  sell  her." 

"Well,  father  will  do  as  he  pleases;  I  shall  tell  him  that 
there  are  five  hundred  francs  to  be  made,  and  he  will  ask 
grandmother  whether  she  will  or  not.  They  would  never  put 
an  old  woman  of  seventy  in  prison ;  and  if  they  do,  she  will 
be  more  comfortable  there  than  in  the  garret." 

"  Five  hundred  francs  !  I  will  speak  to  mother  about  it," 
said  Bonnebault.  "After  all,  if  that  arrangement  gives  me 
the  money,  I  will  let  her  have  some  of  it  to  live  upon  in 
prison.  She  can  spin  to  amuse  herself,  she  will  be  well  fed 
and  have  a  sound  roof  over  her,  and  much  less  trouble  than 
she  has  at  Conches.  Good-by  till  to-morrow,  little  girl — I 
have  not  time  to  talk  to  you." 

Next  morning  at  five  o'clock,  as  soon  as  it  was  light,  Bon- 
nebault and  his  mother  rapped  at  the  door  of  the  Grand-I- 
Vert ;  old  Granny  Tonsard  was  the  only  person  out  of  bed. 

"  Marie  !  "  shouted  Bonnebault,  "  it  is  a  bargain  !  " 


356  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"  Is  that  yesterday's  affair  about  the  trees?  "  asked  Granny 
Tonsard.  "  That  is  all  settled,  they  are  going  to  catch  me.'1 

"You,  indeed!  My  boy  has  Monsieur  Rigou's  promise 
for  an  acre  of  land  for  the  money ;  "  and  the  two  old  women 
quarreled  as  to  which  of  them  should  be  sold  by  their  chil- 
dren. The  sound  of  the  dispute  roused  the  house  ;  Tonsard 
and  Bonnebault  each  took  the  part  of  his  parent. 

"  Pull  straws  for  it,"  suggested  La  Tonsard,  the  daughter- 
in-law. 

The  straws  decided  in  favor  of  the  Grand-I-Vert. 

Three  days  later,  at  daybreak,  the  gendarmes  arrested 
Granny  Tonsard  in  the  depths  of  the  forest,  and  took  her 
away  to  Ville-aux-Fayes.  She  was  caught  in  the  act  by  the 
head-forester,  the  keepers,  and  the  rural  policeman.  In  her 
possession  they  found  a  cheap  file,  with  which  she  made  an 
incision  in  the  tree,  and  a  bradawl,  with  which  she  made  the 
ring-shaped  gash  to  imitate  the  insect's  track.  In  the  indict- 
ment it  was  stated  that  this  treacherous  operation  had  been 
performed  upon  no  fewer  than  sixty  trees  within  a  radius  of 
five  hundred  paces,  and  Granny  Tonsard  was  committed  for 
trial  at  the  Assizes  at  Auxerre. 

When  Michaud  saw  the  old  crone  at  the  foot  of  the  tree, 
he  could  not  help  exclaiming — 

"  These  are  the  people  on  whom  Monsieur  le  Comte  and 
Madame  la  Comtesse  heap  kindnesses  !  My  word,  if  my  lady 
would  listen  to  me,  she  would  not  portion  that  Tonsard  girl, 
who  is  even  more  worthless  than  the  grandmother." 

The  old  woman  turned  her  gray  eyes  on  Michaud  with  a 
viperous  glance.  And,  in  fact,  when  the  count  knew  the 
author  of  the  crime,  he  forbade  his  wife  to  give  anything  to 
Catherine  Tonsard. 

"And  so  much  the  better,  Monsieur  le  Comte,"  said  Sibi- 
let,  "  for  it  has  come  to  my  knowledge  that  Godain  bought 
that  field  of  his  three  days  before  Catherine  came  to  speak  to 
my  lady.  The  pair  of  them  evidently  counted  on  the  effect 


THE  PEASANTRY.  357 

of  the  scene  and  on  her  ladyship's  compassion.  Catherine  is 
quite  capable  of  putting  herself  in  her  present  case  on  purpose 
to  ask  for  the  money,  for  Godain  counts  for  nothing  in  the 
business " 

"  What  people  !  "  said  Blondet ;  "  our  black  sheep  in  Paris 
are  saints  in  comparison " 

"Ah,  sir,"  Sibilet  broke  in,  "all  sorts  of  horrible  things 
are  done  from  mercenary  motives  hereabout.  Do  you  know 
who  it  was  that  betrayed  the  Tonsard  ?  " 

«  No " 

"  Her  granddaughter,  Marie.  Her  sister  is  going  to  be 
married,  and  she  is  jealous,  and  so,  to  settle  herself " 

"It  is  shocking!"  said  the  count.  "Then  would  they 
commit  a  murder  ?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Sibilet,  "and  for  a  mere  nothing.  That  sort 
of  people  set  little  value  on  life;  they  are  tired  of  continual 
toil.  Ah  !  sir,  in  out-of-the-way  country  places  things  are  no 
better  than  in  Paris,  but  you  would  not  believe  it." 

"  Then  be  kind  and  benevolent  to  them,"  said  the  countess. 

On  the  evening  after  Granny  Tonsard's  arrest,  Bonnebault 
looked  in  at  the  Grand-I-Vert,  and  found  the  whole  Tonsard 
family  in  great  jubilation. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  he,  "  you  may  rejoice  !  I  have  just  heard 
from  Vaudoyer  that  the  countess  is  going  back  on  her  promise 
of  Godain's  thousand  francs.  Her  husband  will  not  allow 
her  to  give  the  money." 

"  It  is  that  rascal  Michaud  who  gave  the  advice,"  said 
Tonsard  ;  "  mother  overheard  him.  She  told  me  about  it  at 
Ville-aux-Fayes  when  I  went  over  to  take  all  her  things  and 
some  money.  Well  and  good,  let  her  keep  her  thousand 
francs ;  our  five  hundred  francs  will  go  part  of  the  way  toward 
paying  for  Godain's  land,  and  we  will  have  our  revenge, 
Godain,  you  and  I.  Aha  !  so  Michaud  interferes  in  our  little 
affairs,  does  he  ?  He  will  get  more  harm  than  good  that  way. 


358  THE  PEASANTRY. 

What  does  it  matter  to  him,  I  ask  you?  Did  it  happen  in 
his  woods  ?  And,  beside,  it  was  he  that  raised  all  this  racket. 
That  is  as  true  as  'tis  that  he  found  out  the  trick  that  day 
when  mother  slit  the  dog's  gullet.  And  how  if  I  in  my  turn 
begin  to  meddle  in  matters  at  the  castle  ?  How  if  I  bring  the 
general  word  that  his  wife  goes  out  walking  in  the  woods  of  a 
morning  with  a  young  man,  no  matter  for  the  dew;  one  had 
need  have  warm  feet  to  do  that " 

"  The  general !  the  general !  "  broke  in  Courtecuisse,  "  any 
one  can  do  as  they  like  with  him;  it  is  Michaud  who  puts 
him  up  to  things,  a  fussy  fellow  who  does  not  understand  his 
own  trade.  Things  went  quite  otherwise  in  my  time." 

"Ah!"  said  Tonsard,  "those  were  fine  times  for  us  all, 
Vaudoyer,  were  they  not?" 

"The  fact  is,"  replied  Vaudoyer,  "that  if  an  end  was 
made  of  Michaud,  we  should  live  in  peace." 

"That  is  enough  prattle,"  said  Tonsard;  "we  will  talk 
about  this  seriously  later  on,  by  moonlight,  out  in  the  open." 

Toward  the  end  of  October  the  countess  went  back  to  town 
and  left  the  general  at  the  Aigues.  He  was  not  prepared  to 
follow  for  some  time  to  come,  but  she  was  unwilling  to  lose 
the  opening  of  the  opera  season  at  the  Theatre-Italien  ;  and, 
moreover,  she  felt  lonely  and  dull  now  that  Emile  had  left 
them,  for  his  society  had  helped  her  to  pass  the  time  while 
the  general  went  about  the  country  and  saw  to  his  affairs. 

Winter  set  in  in  earnest  with  November,  the  weather  was 
gray  and  gloomy  with  spells  of  cold  thaw,  rain,  and  snow. 
Granny  Tonsard's  trial  came  on,  witnesses  must  make  the 
journey  to  Auxerre,  and  Michaud  went  to  make  his  deposition. 
M.  Rigou  was  seized  with  pity  for  the  old  woman,  and  found 
her  counsel,  a  barrister  who  dwelt  in  his  defense  on  the  fact 
that  all  the  witnesses  for  the  prosecution  were  interested 
parties,  while  there  were  no  witnesses  for  the  defense,  but  the 
evidence  given  by  Michaud  and  the  keepers  was  corroborated 
by  the  rural  policeman  and  two  of  the  gendarmes.  This  de- 


7 HE  PEASANTRY.  359 

cided  the  day,  and  Tonsard's  mother  was  sentenced  to  five 

years'  imprisonment. 

,     "  Michaud's  evidence  did  it  all,"  the  barrister  told  Tonsard. 


IX. 

THE    CATASTROPHE. 

One  Saturday  evening,  Courtecuisse,  Bonnebault,  Godain, 
Tonsard,  and  his  wife  and  daughters,  Daddy  Fourchon,  Vau- 
doyer,  and  a  few  laborers  sat  at  supper  at  the  Grand-I-Vert. 
Outside  there  was  a  dim  moon,  and  a  frost  of  the  kind  that 
dries  the  ground.  The  first  fallen  snow  had  melted  and 
frozen,  so  that  a  man  walking  over  the  land  left  no  tell-tale 
footprints  to  put  the  pursuit  of  justice  on  his  track.  The 
hares  for  the  stew  off  which  they  were  supping  had  been 
caught  in  traps.  The  whole  party  were  laughing  and  drink- 
ing, for  it  was  the  morrow  of  Catherine  Godain  *s  wedding, 
and  they  were  going  to  bring  the  bride  home.  Godain's  new 
house  was  not  far  from  Courtecuisse's  little  farm ;  for  when 
Rigou  sold  an  acre  of  land,  he  took  care  to  sell  an  isolated 
plot  somewhere  on  the  edge  of  the  woods. 

Courtecuisse  and  Vaudoyer  had  come  with  their  guns  to 
escort  the  bride.  The  whole  countryside  was  sleeping;  there 
was  not  a  light  to  be  seen.  Only  the  wedding  party  were 
awake,  and  their  boisterous  mirth  was  at  its  loudest  when 
Bonnebault's  old  mother  came  in.  At  that  hour  of  night 
every  one  looked  up  in  surprise  at  her,  but  she  spoke  in  a  low 
voice  to  Tonsard  and  her  own  son. 

"  It  looks  as  if  the  wife's  time  had  come,"  she  said.  "He 
has  just  had  his  horse  saddled ;  he  is  going  to  Soulanges  for 
Dr.  Gourdon." 

"  Sit  you  down,  mother,"  said  Tonsard,  and,  resigning  his 
seat  at  the  table,  he  laid  himself  at  full  length  on  a  bench. 

As  he  did  so,   they  heard  a  horse  pass  by  at  full  gallop 


SCO  THE  PEASANTRY. 

along  the  road.  Tonsard,  Courtecuisse,  and  Vaudoyer  went 
at  once  to  the  door,  and  saw  Michaud  riding  through  the 
village. 

"How  well  he  understands  his  business!"  said  Courte- 
cuisse; "he  went  round  past  the  front  of  the  castle,  he  is 
taking  the  Blangy  road,  it  is  the  safest " 

"Yes,"  said  Tonsard,  "but  he  will  bring  Dr.  Gourdon 
back  with  him." 

"Perhaps  he  will  not  find  him  at  home,"  objected  Courte- 
cuisse; "Dr.  Gourdon  was  expected  at  Conches  for  the 
postmistress,  who  is  putting  people  out  at  this  time  of  night." 

"Why,  then  he  will  go  by  the  high  road  from  Soulanges  to 
Conches,  that  is  the  shortest  way." 

"And  the  surest  for  us,"  said  Courtecuisse;  "there  is  a 
bright  moonlight  just  now.  There  are  no  keepers  along  the 
high  road  as  there  are  in  the  woods ;  you  can  hear  anybody 
a  long  way  off;  and  from  the  lodge  gates  there,  behind  the 
hedges,  just  where  the  coppice  begins,  you  can  hit  a  man  in 
the  back,  as  if  he  were  a  rabbit,  at  five  hundred  paces " 

"It  will  be  half-past  eleven  before  he  goes  past  the  place," 
said  Tonsard.  "  It  will  take  him  half  an  hour  to  reach  Sou- 
langes, and  another  half-hour  to  come  back.  Look  here  though, 
boys,  suppose  that  Monsieur  Gourdon  was  on  the  road " 

"Don't  trouble  yourself,"  said  Courtecuisse;  "I  shall  be 
ten  minutes'  distance  away  from  you  on  the  direct  road  to 
Blangy,  on  the  Soulanges  side,  and  Vaudoyer  will  be  ten 
minutes  away  on  the  Conches  side.  If  anybody  comes  along, 
a  post-chaise,  the  mail-coach,  or  the  gendarmes,  or  anything 
whatever,  we  will  fire  into  the  earth,  a  smothered  shot." 

"And  if  I  miss  him  ?  " 

"He  is  right,"  said  Courtecuisse.  "I  am  a  better  shot 
than  you  are ;  Vaudoyer,  I  will  go  with  you.  Bonnebault 
will  take  my  post ;  he  can  call  out,  a  shout  is  easier  to  hear, 
and  not  so  suspicious." 

The  three  men  went  back  into  the  tavern,  and  they  kept 


THE  PEASANTRY.  361 

up  the  festivity ;  but  at  eleven  o'clock  Vaudoyer,  Courtecuisse, 
Tonsard,  and  Bonnebault  turned  out  with  their  guns,  none  of 
the  women  paying  any  attention  to  this.  Three-quarters  of 
an  hour  later,  moreover,  they  came  in  again,  and  sat  drinking 
until  one  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Catherine  and  Marie, 
with  their  mother  and  Bonnebault,  had  plied  the  rest  of  the 
party  with  drink,  until  the  miller,  the  laborers,  and  the  two 
peasants,  like  Daddy  Fourchon,  lay  snoring  on  the  floor,  when 
the  four  set  out  on  their  errand.  When  they  came  back  they 
shook  the  sleepers,  whom  they  found  as  they  left  them,  each 
in  his  place. 

While  this  orgy  went  on,  Michaud's  household  endured  the 
most  cruel  anxiety.  Olympe  had  been  taken  with  false  labor- 
pains,  and  her  husband  had  started  in  all  haste  to  summon 
the  doctor.  But  the  poor  woman's  pains  ceased  as  soon  as 
Michaud  was  out  of  the  house.  Her  mind  was  full  of  the 
possible  risks  which  her  husband  might  be  running  at  that 
late  hour  in  a  hostile  country  full  of  determined  scoundrels ; 
and  so  strong  was  her  anguish  of  soul  that  for  the  time  being 
it  quelled  physical  suffering.  In  vain  did  her  servant  tell  her 
again  and  again  that  her  fears  were  imaginary ;  she  did  not 
seem  to  understand  the  words,  and  sat  by  the  fireside  in  her 
room,  listening  to  every  sound  without.  In  an  agony  of  ter- 
ror, which  grew  from  second  to  second,  she  called  up  the  man 
to  give  him  an  order  which  she  did  not  give.  The  poor  little 
woman  walked  to  and  fro  in  feverish  agitation.  She  went  to 
the  windows  and  looked  out,  she  threw  them  open  in  spite  of 
the  cold,  then  she  went  downstairs,  opened  the  door  into  the 
yard,  and  looked  out  into  the  distance  and  listened. 

"  Nothing ,"  she  said,  "  nothing  yet,"  and  she  went  up 

to  her  room  again  in  despair. 

About  a  quarter-past  twelve  she  cried  out,  "Here  he  is;  I 
hear  his  horse,"  and  went  downstairs,  followed  by  the  man, 
who  went  to  open  the  great  gate. 


362  THE  PEASANTRY. 

"It  is  strange,"  she  said,  "he  has  come  back  by  way  of 
Conches  and  the  forest." 

She  stood  like  one  horror-struck,  motionless  and  dumb. 
The  man  shared  her  dismay ;  for,  in  the  frantic  gallop  of  the 
horse  and  the  clank  of  the  empty  stirrups,  there  had  been  a 
mysterious  sound  which  told  of  something  wrong,  accompanied 
by  the  significant  neighing  which  a  horse  only  gives  when 
alone.  Soon,  too  soon  for  the  unhappy  wife,  the  horse 
reached  the  park  gate,  panting  and  covered  with  foam,  but 
the  horse  was  riderless,  and  the  bridle,  which  doubtless  had 
hindered  his  flight,  was  broken.  Olympe  watched  with  haggard 
eyes  as  the  man  opened  the  gate,  saw  the  empty  saddle,  and 
without  a  word  turned  and  fled  to  the  castle  like  one  dis- 
traught. She  reached  the  house  and  fell  beneath  the  general's 
windows  with  the  cry — 

"  Monsieur !  they  have  murdered  him  !  they  have  mur- 
dered him  !  " 

Her  shriek  was  so  terrible  that  it  woke  the  count ;  he  rang 
the  bell  and  roused  the  household.  The  moans  of  Mme. 
Michaud,  who  was  delivered  of  a  stillborn  child  as  she  lay  on 
the  earth,  brought  out  the  general  and  the  servants.  They 
raised  up  the  unhappy  dying  woman.  "  They  have  killed 
him  !  "  she  said  when  she  saw  the  general,  and  died  with  the 
words  on  her  lips. 

"Joseph!  "  the  count  called  to  his  man,  "run  and  fetch 
the  doctor  !  Perhaps  it  is  not  too  late.  No ;  you  had  better 
go  for  Monsieur  le  Cur6,  she  is  dead,  poor  woman,  and  the 
child  is  dead.  Great  heavens  !  what  a  mercy  that  my  wife  is 
not  here  !  Go  and  see  what  has  happened,"  he  added,  turn- 
ing to  the  gardener. 

"This  has  happened,"  said  the  man  from  the  hunting- 
lodge,  "  Monsieur  Michaud's  horse  has  come  back  without 
him,  the  bridle  is  cut,  there  is  blood  on  his  legs.  There  is  a 
drop  of  blood  on  the  saddle." 

"What  can  we  do  to-night?"  said  the  count.     "Go  and 


MlCHAUD'S    MURDERER 


THE  PEASANTRY.  363 

call  up  Groison,  find  the  keepers,  saddle  the  horses,  and  we 
will  beat  up  the  country!  " 

In  the  gray  light  of  the  morning,  eight  men — the  count, 
Groison,  the  three  keepers,  and  two  gendarmes,  who  had 
come  over  from  Soulanges  with  the  quartermaster — were  out 
searching  the  country  ;  but  it  was  mid-day  before  they  found 
the  dead  body  of  the  head-forester,  in  a  coppice  about  five 
hundred  paces  from  the  Conches  gate,  in  the  corner  of  the 
park  between  the  high  road  and  the  road  to  Ville-aux-Fayes. 

Two  gendarmes  were  dispatched — one  to  Ville-aux-Fayes 
for  the  public  prosecutor,  and  the  other  to  the  justice  of  the 
peace  at  Soulanges — and  meanwhile  the  general  drew  up  a  re- 
port with  the  assistance  of  the  quartermaster.  There  were 
marks  in  the  road  opposite  the  park  gates  where  the  horse  had 
swerved  and  reared,  and  deep  dints  made  by  the  hoofs  of  the 
runaway  continued  as  far  as  the  first  footpath  into  the  wood 
beyond  the  hedge.  The  animal  had  taken  the  shortest  way 
back  to  the  stable.  A  bullet  was  lodged  in  Michaud's  back, 
and  the  spine  was  broken. 

Groison  and  the  quartermaster  went  all  over  the  ground 
round  about  the  spot  where  the  horse  had  reared,  the  "scene 
of  the  murder,"  as  it  is  called  in  criminal  reports,  but  with 
all  their  sagacity  they  could  discover  no  clue.  The  ground 
was  frozen  so  hard  that  there  was  not  a  sign  of  the  footprints 
of  Michaud's  murderer,  and  a  spent  cartridge  was  the  only 
thing  which  they  found. 

When  the  public  prosecutor  arrived  with  the  examining 
magistrate  and  Dr.  Gourdon,  and  the  body  was  removed  for 
the  post-mortem  examination,  it  was  ascertained  that  the  ball, 
which  corresponded  with  the  waste  cartridge,  was  a  regulation 
bullet  discharged  from  a  rifle,  and  that  there  was  not  a  single 
rifle  in  the  commune  of  Blangy.  That  evening  at  the  castle 
the  examining  magistrate  and  M.  Soudry,  the  public  prose- 
cutor, were  of  the  opinion  that  these  facts  should  be  put  in 
the  form  of  a  report,  and  that  they  had  better  wait.  The 


364  THE  PEASANTRY. 

lieutenant  from  Ville-aux-Fayes  and  the  quartermaster  were  of 
the  same  mind. 

"  The  shot  must  have  been  fired  by  somebody  belonging  to 
the  neighborhood,"  said  the  quartermaster,  "but  there  are 
two  communes  in  the  case,  and  there  are  five  or  six  men  in 
Conches  and  Blangy  who  are  quite  capable  of  the  act.  Ton- 
sard,  whom  I  should  suspect  the  most,  spent  the  night  in 
drinking.  Why,  Langlume  the  miller,  your  deputy,  general, 
was  of  the  wedding  party ;  he  was  there  the  whole  time. 
They  were  so  drunk  that  they  could  not  stand  upright,  and 
they  brought  the  bride  home  at  half-past  one,  while  it  is 
evident  from  the  return  of  Michaud's  horse  that  he  was 
murdered  between  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock.  At  a  quarter- 
past  ten  Groison  saw  the  whole  party  at  table,  Monsieur 
Michaud  went  that  way  to  Soulanges,  and  he  was  in  Soulanges 
by  eleven  o'clock.  His  horse  swerved  and  pawed  the  ground 
on  the  road  by  the  lodge  gates,  but  Michaud  might  have  received 
the  shot  before  he  reached  Blangy,  and  have  held  on  for  some 
time  afterward.  Warrants  must  be  issued  for  twenty  persons 
at  the  least,  and  every  one  under  suspicion  must  be  arrested ; 
but  these  gentlemen  know  the  peasants  as  well  as  I  do ;  you 
may  keep  them  in  prison  for  a  year,  and  you  will  get  nothing 
out  of  them  but  denials.  What  do  you  mean  to  do  with  the 
party  in  Tonsard's  place?" 

Langlume,  the  miller  and  deputy-mayor,  was  summoned, 
and  he  gave  his  version  of  the  evening's  events.  They  were 
all  in  the  tavern,  he  said,  no  one  left  it  except  to  go  into  the 
yard  for  a  few  minutes.  He  himself  had  gone  out  with  Ton- 
sard  about  eleven  o'clock ;  something  was  said  about  the 
moon  and  the  weather ;  they  had  heard  nothing.  He  gave 
the  names  of  all  the  party,  not  one  of  them  had  left  the  place, 
and  toward  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  they  had  gone  home 
with  the  newly  married  couple. 

The  general  and  the  public  prosecutor,  taking  counsel  with  the 
lieutenant  and  the  quartermaster,  determined  to  send  to  Paris 


THE  PEASANTRY.  365 

for  a  clever  detective,  who  should  come  to  the  castle  as  a 
workman,  and  be  turned  away  for  bad  conduct.  He  should 
drink  and  assiduously  frequent  the  Grand-I-Vert,  and  hang 
about  the  country  in  discontent  with  the  general.  It  was  the 
best  way  of  lying  in  wait  to  catch  a  chance  indiscretion. 

"  I  will  discover  poor  Michaud's  murderer  in  the  end  if  I 
should  have  to  spend  twenty  thousand  francs  over  it!" 
General  Montcornet  never  wearied  of  repeating  those  words. 

He  went  to  Paris  with  this  idea  in  his  head,  and  returned 
in  the  month  of  January,  with  one  of  the  cleverest  detectives 
on  the  force,  who  came  ostensibly  as  foreman  of  the  work  at 
the  castle,  and  took  to  poaching.  Formal  complaints  were 
made  by  the  keepers,  and  the  general  turned  him  away.  In 
February  the  Comte  de  Montcornet  returned  to  Paris. 

X. 

THE  VICTORY   OF  THE   VANQUISHED. 

One  evening  in  May,  when  summer  weather  had  come,  and 
the  Parisians  had  returned  to  the  Aigues,  M.  de  Troisville, 
whom  his  daughter  had  brought  with  her,  Blondet,  the  Abbe 
Brossette,  the  general,  and  the  sub-prefect  from  Ville-aux- 
Fayes,  who  had  come  on  a  visit,  were  playing  at  whist  and 
chess.  It  was  half-past  eleven  o'clock  when  Joseph  came  in 
to  tell  his  master  that  the  bad  workman  who  had  been  dis- 
missed wished  to  speak  to  him ;  the  man  said  that  the  general 
still  owed  him  money.  He  was  very  drunk,  the  valet  reported. 

"All  right,  I  will  go  out  to  him,"  said  the  general,  and  he 
went  out  on  the  lawn  at  some  distance  from  the  house. 

"  Monsieur  le  Comte,  there  is  nothing  to  be  made  of  these 
people,"  said  the  detective.  "All  that  I  can  find  out  is 
simply  this — that  if  you  stay  here  and  persist  in  trying  to 
break  the  people  of  the  bad  habits  which  they  were  allowed 
to  contract  in  La  Laguerre's  time,  the  next  shot  will  be  fired 


366  THE  PEASANTRY. 

at  you.  I  can  do  nothing  more  here  after  this  ;  they  suspect 
me  even  more  than  your  keepers." 

The  count  paid  the  detective,  and  the  man  took  his  leave  ; 
his  departure  only  confirmed  previous  suspicions  of  the  per- 
petrators of  the  crime.  When  the  general  went  back  to  join 
the  party  in  the  drawing-room,  his  face  bore  traces  of  such 
deep  and  keen  emotion  that  his  wife  came  to  him  anxiously 
asking  for  news. 

"  Dearest,"  he  said,  "  I  do  not  want  to  frighten  you,  and 
yet  it  is  right  that  you  should  know  that  Michaud's  death  was 
meant  for  an  indirect  warning  to  us  to  quit " 

"  For  my  own  part,"  said  M.  de  Troisville,  "  I  should  not 
think  of  going.  I  had  these  same  difficulties  in  Normandy 
under  another  form  ;  I  persisted,  and  now  everything  goes 
well." 

"  Normandy  and  Burgundy  are  two  different  countries,  my 
lord  marquis,"  said  the  sub-prefect.  "  The  fruit  of  the  vine  is 
more  heating  to  the  blood  than  the  fruit  of  the  apple-tree. 
We  are  not  so  learned  here  in  legal  quibbles,  and  we  are  sur- 
rounded by  forests ;  we  have  as  yet  few  industries ;  we  are 
savages,  in  fact.  If  I  have  any  advice  to  give  to  Monsieur  le 
Comte,  it  is  this — to  sell  his  land  and  invest  the  money  in  the 
Funds.  He  would  double  his  income,  and  he  would  not  have 
the  slightest  trouble.  If  he  has  a  liking  for  a  country  life,  he 
can  have  an  estate  near  Paris,  a  castle  as  fine  as  the  Hall  of 
the  Aigues,  a  park  inclosed  by  walls  which  no  one  will  climb, 
and  farms  which  he  can  let  to  tenants  who  will  come  in  a 
cabriolet  to  pay  their  rents  with  bank-notes.  He  will  not 
need  to  make  out  a  single  summons  in  twelve  months.  He 
can  go  and  come  in  three  or  four  hours.  And,  then,  Mad- 
ame la  Comtesse,  Monsieur  Blondet,  and  my  lord  marquis 
would  visit  you  more  frequently " 

"Shall  /  fly  before  the  peasants,  I,  who  stood  my  ground 
on  the  Danube?" 

"Yes,  but  where  are  your  Cuirassiers?"  asked  Blondet. 


THE  PEASANTRY.  367 

"Such  a  fine  estate " 

"It  will  fetch  more  than  two  millions  of  francs  to-day." 

"The  castle  alone  must  have  cost  as  much,"  said  M.  de 
Troisville. 

"One  of  the  finest  properties  for  twenty  leagues  round," 
said  the  sub-prefect,  "  but  you  will  find  better  near  Paris." 

"What  would  two  million  francs  bring  in,  invested  in  the 
Funds?"  inquired  the  countess. 

"At  the  present  time,  about  forty  thousand  francs,"  said 
Blondet. 

"The  Aigues  would  not  bring  you  in  more  than  thirty 
thousand  all  told,"  said  the  countess,  "and  then  of  late  years 
you  have  spent  an  immense  amount  upon  it,  you  have  had 
ditches  made  round  the  woods." 

"You  can  have  a  royal  palace  just  now  on  the  outskirts  of 
Paris  for  four  hundred  thousand  francs.  You  reap  the  benefit 
of  other  people's  follies." 

"  I  thought  that  you  were  fond  of  the  Aigues,"  the  count 
said  to  his  wife. 

"  But  do  you  not  feel  that  your  life  is  a  thousand  times 
more  to  me  than  the  Aigues?"  said  she.  "And,  beside, 
since  the  death  of  poor  Olympe  and  Michaud's  murder,  the 
country  has  grown  hateful  to  me.  I  seem  to  see  threats  and 
a  sinister  expression  on  every  face." 

The  next  morning,  when  the  sub-prefect  came  into  M. 
Gaubertin's  drawing-room  at  Ville-aux-Fayes,  the  mayor 
greeted  him  with — "  Well,  Monsieur  des  Lupeaulx,  have  you 
come  from  the  Aigues?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  sub-prefect,  with  a  shade  of  triumph  in 
his  manner.  He  shot  a  tender  glance  at  Mile.  Elise  as  he 
added,  "I  am  afraid  that  we  are  going  to  lose  the  general; 

he  is  about  to  sell  his  estate " 

"Monsieur  Gaubertin,  I  beg  of  you  not  to  forget  my  lodge 
— I  cannot  bear  the  noise  and  dust  of  Ville-aux-Fayes  any 
longer;  like -some  poor  imprisoned  bird,  I  gasp  for  the  air  of 


368  THE  PEASANTRY. 

the  far-off  fields  and  woods,"  drawled  Madame  Isaure,  her 
eyes  half-closed,  her  head  thrown  back  over  her  left  shoulder, 
while  she  languidly  twisted  her  long  pale  ringlets. 

"  Pray  be  careful,  madame  !  "  said  Gaubertin,  lowering  his 
voice,  "  your  babbling  will  not  buy  the  lodge  for  us " 

Then  he  turned  to  the  sub-prefect — 

"So  they  still  cannot  find  the  perpetrators  of  the  crime 
committed  on  the  person  of  the  head-forester?"  he  inquired. 

"It  seems  that  they  cannot,"  replied  the  sub-prefect. 

"That  will  injure  the  sale  of  the  Aigues  very  much/'  an- 
nounced Gaubertin  to  all  who  heard  him  ;  "  for  my  own  part, 
I  would  not  buy  the  place,  I  know.  The  peasants  are  too 
troublesome.  Even  in  Mademoiselle  Laguerre's  time  I  used 
to  have  trouble  with  them,  though  the  Lord  knows  that  she 
allowed  them  latitude  enough." 

The  month  of  May  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and  there  was 
nothing  indicating  that  the  general  meant  to  sell  the  Aigues. 
He  was  hesitating.  One  night  about  ten  o'clock  he  was  re- 
turning from  the  forest  by  one  of  the  six  avenues  which  led 
to  the  hunting-lodge;  he  was  so  near  home  that  he  had 
dismissed  the  keeper  who  went  with  him.  At  a  turn  in  the 
avenue  a  man  armed  with  a  rifle  came  out  from  a  bush. 

"General,"  he  said,  "this  is  the  third  time  that  I  have 
had  you  close  to  the  muzzle  of  my  gun,  and  this  makes  the 
third  time  that  I  have  given  you  your  life." 

"And  why  should  you  want  to  kill  me,  Bonnebault,"  said 
the  count,  without  a  sign  of  flinching. 

"  Faith  !  if  I  did  not,  it  would  be  somebody  else ;  and,  you 
see,  I  myself  have  a  liking  for  those  who  served  under  the 
Emperor,  and  I  cannot  make  up  my  mind  to  shoot  you  like  a 
partridge.  Don't  ask  me  about  it ;  I  don't  mean  to  say  any- 
thing. But  you  have  enemies  who  are  more  cunning  and 
stronger  than  you  are,  and  they  will  crush  you  at  last.  I  am 
to  have  three  thousand  francs  if  I  kill  you,  and  I  shall  marry 


THE  PEASANTRY.  369 

Marie  Tonsard.  Well,  give  me  a  few  acres  of  waste-land  and 
a  cabin ;  I  will  go  on  saying,  as  I  have  said  before,  that  I 
have  not  found  an  opportunity.  You  shall  have  time  to  sell 
your  place  and  go  away,  but  be  quick.  I  am  a  good  fellow 
still,  scapegrace  though  I  am;  somebody  else  might  do  you  a 
mischief." 

"And  if  I  give  you  your  demands,"  said  the  general, 
"will  you  tell  me  who  it  was  that  promised  you  the  three 
thousand  francs?" 

"  I  do  not  know;  some  one  is  pushing  me  on  to  do  this, 
but  I  am  too  fond  of  that  person  to  mention  names.  And  if 
I  did,  and  if  you  knew  that  it  was  Marie  Tonsard,  you  would 
be  no  further.  Marie  would  be  as  mute  as  a  wall  and  I 
should  deny  my  words." 

"  Come  and  see  me  to-morrow,"  said  the  general. 

"That  is  enough,"  said  Bonnebault ;  "if  they  think  that 
I  am  bungling  the  business,  I  will  let  you  know." 

A  week  after  this  strange  conversation,  the  district,  the 
whole  department — nay,  Paris  itself — was  flooded  with  huge 
placards,  wherein  it  was  set  forth  that  the  Aigues  was  to  be 
put  up  for  sale  in  lots  ;  applications  to  be  made  to  Maitre 
Corbinet,  notary,  Soulanges.  All  the  lots  were  knocked 
down  to  Rigou,  the  total  amount  paid  being  two  million  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs. 

On  the  morrow  of  the  sale  the  names  of  the  buyers  were 
changed.  M.  Gaubertin  took  the  forest,  Rigou  and  Soudry 
had  the  vineyards  and  the  rest  of  the  estate.  The  castle  and 
the  park  were  resold  to  the  Black  Band,  to  be  pulled  down  for 
building  materials;  only  the  hunting-lodge,  with  its  depend- 
encies, was  allowed  to  stand — M.  Gaubertin  reserved  it  as  a 
present  for  his  poetical  and  sentimental  spouse. 

Many  years  went  by.     During  the  winter  of  1837,  Emile 
Blondet,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  political  writers  of  the 
24 


370  THE  PEASANTRY. 

time,  had  reached  the  lowest  depth  of  poverty,  which  he  had 
hitherto  concealed  beneath  the  brilliant  and  elegant  surface  of 
his  life.  He  was  hesitating  on  the  brink  of  a  desperate  re- 
solve ;  he  saw  that  his  work,  his  wit  and  knowledge  of  men 
and  affairs,  had  ended  in  naught,  that  he  was  a  machine 
working  for  the  benefit  of  others.  He  saw  that  all  places 
were  filled  ;  he  felt  that  he  was  growing  older,  and  knew  that 
he  had  neither  wealth  nor  position.  The  place-men  and 
incapables  of  the  Restoration  had  succeeded  to  the  bourgeois 
imbeciles  and  incapables,  and  the  Government  was  reconsti- 
tuted as  it  had  been  before  1830.  One  evening,  when  sui- 
cide, at  which  he  had  scoffed  so  often,  was  hovering  in  his 
thoughts,  he  glanced  finally  over  his  unlucky  life,  in  which 
work  had  filled  a  far  larger  space  than  the  dissipation  which 
slander  imputed  to  him,  and  saw  the  fair  and  noble  face  of  a 
woman  rise  out  of  the  past,  like  a  stainless  and  unbroken 
marble  statue  amid  the  dreariest  ruins.  His  porter  brought 
him  a  letter  with  a  black  seal.  The  Comtesse  de  Montcornet 
wrote  to  inform  him  of  the  death  of  her  husband,  who  had 
returned  to  the  army,  and  had  again  commanded  a  division. 
She  was  his  heir;  she  had  no  children.  That  letter,  in  spite 
of  its  womanly  dignity,  told  Blondet  that  the  woman  of  forty, 
whom  he  had  loved  in  his  youth,  held  out  a  comrade's  hand 
to  him  and  a  considerable  fortune. 

Shorty  afterward  a  marriage  took  place  between  the  Com- 
tesse de  Montcornet  and  M.  Blondet,  a  newly  appointed 
prefect.  He  went  to  his  prefecture  by  the  route  on  which  the 
Aigues  formerly  lay,  and  stopped  the  traveling  carriage  oppo- 
site the  place  where  the  park  gates  used  to  stand,  to  see  once 
more  the  commune  of  Blangy,  so  thronged  with  tender 
memories  for  them  both.  The  country  was  no  longer  recog- 
nizable. The  mysterious  woods,  the  avenues  in  the  park,  had 
been  cleared  away,  the  country  looked  like  a  tailor's  book  of 
patterns.  The  Peasantry  had  taken  possession  of  the  soil  as 
conquerors  and  by  right  of  conquest ;  already  it  had  been 


THE  PEASANTRY.  371 

divided  up  into  more  than  a  thousand  holdings ;  already  the 
population  of  Blangy  had  trebled  itself.  The  once  beautiful 
park — so  carefully  ordered,  so  luxuriantly  fair — was  now  an 
agricultural  district,  with  one  familiar  building  standing  out 
in  strong  contrast  against  the  changed  background.  This 
was  the  hunting-lodge,  re-christened  The  Lovely  Retreat  by 
Mme.  Isaure  Gaubertin,  who  had  converted  it  into  a  villa  resi- 
dence. The  building  looked  almost  like  a  castle,  so  miser- 
able were  the  peasants'  cabins  scattered  round  about  it. 

"Behold  the  march  of  progress!"  cried  Emile.  "Here 
is  a  page  from  Jean- Jacques'  '  Contrat  Social.'  And  here 
am  I,  in  harness,  a  part  of  the  social  machinery  which  brings 
about  such  results  as  these  !  Good  heavens  !  what  will  be- 
come of  kings  in  a  little  while  ?  Nay,  what  will  become  of 
the  nations  themselves  in  fifty  years'  time,  if  this  state  of 
things  continues?" 

"You  love  me — you  are  at  my  side.  The  present  is  very 
fair  for  me,  and  I  hardly  care  to  think  of  such  a  far-off  future," 
his  wife  answered. 

"  With  you  beside  me,  long  live  the  Present  !  and  the 
devil  take  the  Future  !  "  cried  the  enraptured  Blondet. 

He  made  a  sign  to  the  man,  the  horses  sprang  forward  at  a 
gallop,  and  the  newly  wedded  lovers  resumed  the  course  of 
their  honeymoon. 


The  author  of  "The  Peasantry"  should  be  allowed  to  be  sufficiently 
learned  in  the  history  of  his  own  times  to  know  that  there  never  were  any 
Cuirassiers  of  the  Imperial  Guard.  He  takes  the  liberty  of  stating  here 
that  he  has  in  his  study  the  uniforms  of  the  Republic,  the  Empire,  and 
the  Restoration ;  a  complete  collection  of  the  military  costumes  of  every 
country  which  has  fought  with  France  as  an  enemy  or  as  an  ally ;  and 
more  military  works  on  the  wars  of  1792-1815  than  any  marshal  of  France. 
He  takes  the  opportunity,  through  the  medium  of  the  press,  of  thanking 
those  persons  who  have  honored  him  by  taking  a  sufficient  interest  in  his 
work  to  correct  his  mistakes  and  send  him  information. 

Once  for  all,  he  here  states  in  reply  that  these  inaccuracies  are  deliber- 


372  THE  PEASANTRY. 

ately  and  designedly  made.  The  story  is  not  a  "  Scene  de  la  Vie  Mill. 
taire,"  in  which  an  author  is  bound  not  to  equip  his  infantry  men  with 
sabretaches.  Every  attempt  to  deal  with  contemporary  history,  even 
through  contemporary  types,  has  its  dangers.  It  is  only  by  making  use 
of  a  general  scheme,  in  which  all  the  details  are  minutely  true,  and  all  the 
facts  severally  altered  by  giving  an  unfamiliar  color  to  them,  that  the 
petty  reef  of  "  personalities  "  can  be  avoided  in  fiction.  In  a  previous  case 
("  Une  Ten6breuse  Affaire"),  although  the  facts  belonged  to  history  and 
the  details  had  been  altered,  the  author  was  compelled  to  reply  to  ridicu- 
lous objections  raised  on  the  ground  that  there  was  but  one  senator  kid- 
napped and  confined  in  the  time  of  the  Empire.  I  quite  believe  it ! 
Possibly  he  who  should  have  abducted  a  second  senator  would  have  been 
crowned  with  flowers. 

If  this  inaccuracy  with  regard  to  the  Cuirassiers  is  too  shocking,  it  is  easy 
to  suppress  the  mention  of  the  Guard ;  though,  in  that  case,  the  family  of 
the  illustrious  general  who  commanded  the  regiment  of  horse  which  was 
pushed  down  to  the  edge  of  the  Danube  might  ask  us  to  account  for  those 
eleven  hundred  thousand  francs,  which  the  Emperor  allowed  Montcornet 
to  save  in  Pomerania. 

We  shall  soon  be  requested  to  give  the  name  of  the  geography  book  in 
which  Ville-aux-Fayes  and  the  Avonne  and  Soulanges  are  to  be  found. 
Let  it  be  said  that  all  these  places,  and  the  Cuirassiers  of  the  Guard  likewise, 
are  to  be  found  on  those  shores  where  the  Master  of  Ravenswood's  tower 
stands ;  there  you  will  find  Saint  Ronan's  Well  and  the  lands  of  Tillie- 
tudlem  and  Gandercleugh  and  Lilliput  and  the  Abbey  of  Thelema,  and 
Hoffmann's  privy  councilors,  and  Robinson  Crusoe's  Island,  and  the  estates 
of  the  Shandy  Family ;  in  that  world  no  taxes  are  paid,  and  those  who 
fain  would  make  the  voyage  may  travel  thither  post,  at  the  rate  of  twenty 
centimes  a  volume. 

AUTHOR'S  NOTE. 


PIERRE  GRASSOU. 

Translated  by  CLARA  BELL. 

To  Lieutenant-Colonel  Periollas  (of  the  Artillery)  as  a  proof  of 
the  author's  affection  and  esteem. 

DE  BALZAC. 

ON  every  occasion  when  you  have  gone  seriously  to  study 
the  Exhibition  of  works  in  sculpture  and  painting,  such  as  it 
has  been  since  the  Revolution  of  1830,  have  you  not  been 
seized  by  a  feeling  of  discomfort,  boredom,  and  melancholy 
at  the  sight  of  the  long,  overfilled  galleries?  Since  1830  the 
Salon  has  ceased  to  exist.  Once  more  the  Louvre  has  been 
taken  by  storm  by  the  mob  of  artists,  and  they  have  kept  pos- 
session. Formerly,  when  the  Salon  gave  us  a  choice  collec- 
tion of  works  of  art,  it  secured  the  greatest  honors  for  the 
examples  exhibited  there.  Among  the  two  hundred  selected 
pictures  the  public  chose  again ;  a  crown  was  awarded  to  the 
masterpieces  by  unknown  hands.  Impassioned  discussions 
arose  as  to  the  merits  of  a  painting.  The  abuse  heaped  on 
Delacroix  and  on  Ingres  were  not  of  less  service  to  them  than 
the  praises  and  fanaticism  of  their  adherents. 

In  our  day  neither  the  crowd  nor  the  critic  can  be  vehement 
over  the  objects  in  this  bazaar.  Being  compelled  to  make  the 
selection  which  was  formerly  undertaken  by  the  examining 
jury,  their  attention  is  exhausted  by  the  effort ;  and  by  the 
time  it  is  finished  the  Exhibition  closes. 

Until  1817  the  pictures  .accepted  never  extended  beyond 
the  two  first  columns  of  the  long  gallery  containing  the  works 
of  the  old  masters,  and  this  year  they  filled  the  whole  of  this 
space,  to  the  great  surprise  of  the  public.  Historical  painting, 
genre,  easel  pictures,  landscape,  flowers,  animals,  and  water- 
color  painting — each  of  these  eight  classes  could  never  yield 

(373) 


374  PIERRE   GRASSOU. 

more  than  twenty  pictures  worthy  of  the  eye  of  the  public, 
who  cannot  give  attention  to  a  larger  collection  of  pictures. 

The  more  the  number  of  artists  increases,  the  more  exacting 
should  the  jury  of  selection  become.  All  was  lost  as  soon  as 
the  Salon  encroached  further  on  the  gallery.  The  Salon 
should  have  been  kept  within  fixed  and  restricted  limits,  in- 
flexibly defined,  where  each  class  might  exhibit  its  best  works. 
The  experience  of  ten  years  has  proven  the  excellence  of  the 
old  rules.  Instead  of  a  tourney,  you  now  have  a  riot ;  instead 
of  a  glorious  exhibition,  you  have  a  medley  bazaar ;  instead  of 
a  selection,  you  have  everything  at  once.  What  is  the  re- 
sult? A  great  artist  is  swamped.  The  "Turkish  Cafe,"  the 
"Turkish  Children  at  the  Well,"  the  "  Torture  by  Hooks," 
and  the  "Joseph  Sold  by  His  Brethren  "  by  Decamps  would 
have  done  more  for  his  glory  if  exhibited,  all  four,  in  the  great 
room  with  the  hundred  other  good  pictures  of  the  year,  than 
his  twenty  canvasses  buried  among  three  thousand  paintings 
and  dispersed  among  six  galleries. 

With  strange  perversity,  since  the  doors  have  been  thrown 
open  to  all,  there  has  been  much  talk  of  unappreciated  genius. 
When,  twelve  years  before,  the  "Courtesan,"  by  Ingres,  and 
Sigalon's  pictures,  Gericault's  "  Raft  of  the  Medusa,"  Dela- 
croix's "The  Massacre  of  Scio,"  and  Eugene  Deveria's  "Bap- 
tism of  Henri  IV." — accepted,  as  they  were,  by  yet  more 
famous  men,  who  were  taxed  with  jealousy — revealed  to  the 
world,  notwithstanding  the  carping  of  critics,  the  existence  of 
youthful  and  ardent  painters,  not  a  complaint  was  ever  heard. 
But  now,  when  the  veriest  dauber  of  canvas  can  display  his 
works,  we  hear  of  nothing  but  misunderstood  talent.  Where 
there  is  no  longer  any  judgment,  nothing  is  judged.  Our 
artists,  do  what  they  may,  will  come  back  to  the  ordeal  of 
selection  which  recommends  their  work  to  the  admiration  of 
the  public  for  whom  they  toil.  Without  the  choice  exercised 
by  the  Academy,  there  will  be  no  Salon;  and  without  the 
Salon,  art  may  perish. 


PIERRE   GRASSOU.  375 

Since  the  catalogue  has  grown  to  be  a  fat  volume,  many 
names  are  found  there  which  remain  obscure,  notwithstanding 
the  list  of  ten  or  twelve  pictures  that  follows  them.  Among 
these  names,  the  least  known  of  all,  perhaps,  is  that  of  an 
artist  named  Pierre  Grassou,  a  native  of  Fougeres,  and  called, 
for  shortness,  Fougeres  in  the  artist  world — a  name  which  now- 
a-days  fills  so  much  space  on  the  page,  and  which  has  sug- 
gested the  bitter  reflections  introducing  this  sketch  of  his  life, 
and  applicable  to  some  other  members  of  the  artist  tribe. 

In  1832  Fougeres  was  living  in  the  Rue  de  Navarin,  on  the 
fifth  floor  of  one  of  those  tall,  narrow  houses  that  are  like  the 
obelisk  of  Luxor,  which  have  a  passage  and  a  dark,  narrow 
staircase  with  dangerous  turnings,  which  are  not  wide  enough 
for  more  than  three  windows  on  each  floor,  and  have  a  court- 
yard, or,  to  be  exact,  a  square  well,  at  the  back.  Above  the 
three  or  four  rooms  inhabited  by  Fougeres  was  his  studio, 
looking  out  over  Montmartre.  The  studio,  painted  brick  red; 
the  floor,  carefully  stained  brown  and  polished ;  each  chair 
provided  with  a  square,  bordered  mat ;  the  sofa,  plain  enough, 
but  as  clean  as  that  in  a  tradeswoman's  bedroom — everything 
betrayed  the  petty  existence  of  a  narrow  mind  and  the  care- 
fulness of  a  poor  man.  There  was  a  closet  for  keeping  the 
studio  properties  in,  a  breakfast  table,  a  sideboard,  a  desk, 
and  the  various  objects  necessary  for  painting,  all  clean  and 
in  order.  The  stove,  too,  had  the  benefit  of  this  Dutch  neat- 
ness, which  was  all  the  more  conspicuous  because  the  pure  and 
steady  northern  sky  flooded  the  back  room  with  clear,  cold 
light.  Fougeres,  a  mere  painter  of  genre,  had  no  need  for 
the  huge  machinery  which  ruins  historical  painters;  he  had 
never  discerned  in  himself  faculties  competent  to  venture  on 
the  higher  walks  of  art,  and  was  still  content  with  small 
easels. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  month  of  December  of  that  year, 
the  season  when  Paris  Philistines  are  periodically  attacked  by 
the  burlesque  idea  of  perpetuating  their  faces — in  themselves 


376  PIERRE   GRASS 017. 

a  sufficient  burden — Pierre  Grassou,  having  risen  early,  was 
setting  his  palette,  lighting  his  stove,  eating  a  roll  soaked  in 
milk,  and  waiting  to  work  till  his  window-panes  should  have 
thawed  enough  to  let  daylight  in.  The  weather  was  dry  and 
fine.  At  this  instant,  the  painter,  eating  with  the  patient, 
resigned  look  that  tells  so  much,  recognized  the  footfall  of  a 
man  who  had  had  the  influence  over  his  life  which  people  of 
his  class  have  in  the  career  of  most  artists — Elias  Magus,  a 
picture  dealer,  a  usurer  in  canvas.  And,  in  fact,  Elias  Magus 
came  in  at  the  moment  when  the  painter  was  about  to  begin 
work  in  his  elaborately  clean  studio. 

"  How  is  yourself,  old  rascal?  "  said  the  painter. 

Fougeres  had  won  the  cross ;  Elias  bought  his  pictures  for 
two  or  three  hundred  francs,  and  gave  himself  the  most  artistic 
airs. 

"  Business  is  bad,"  replied  Elias.  "  You  all  are  such  lords  ; 
you  talk  of  two  hundred  francs  as  soon  as  you  have  six  sous' 
worth  of  paint  on  the  canvas.  But  you  are  a  very  good  fellow, 
you  are.  You  are  a  man  of  method,  and  I  have  come  to  bring 
you  a  good  job." 

"Timeo  Danaos  et  dona  fercntes"  said  Fougeres.  "Do 
you  know  Latin?" 

"No." 

"  Well,  that  means  that  the  Greeks  did  not  offer  a  bit  of 
good  business  to  the  Trojans  without  making  something  out 
of  it.  In  those  days  they  used  to  say,  '  Take  my  horse.'  Now- 
adays we  say,  '  Take  my  trash  ! '  Well,  what  do  you  want, 
Ulysses-Lagingeole-Elias-Magus  ?  " 

This  speech  shows  the  degree  of  sweetness  and  wit  which 
Fougeres  could  put  into  what  painters  call  studio-chaff. 

"  I  don't  say  that  you  will  not  have  to  paint  me  two  pic- 
tures for  nothing." 

"Oh!  oh!" 

"I  leave  it  to  you;  I  do  not  ask  for  them.  You  are  an 
honest  artist." 


PIERRE   GRASSOU.  377 

"Indeed?" 

"  Well.  I  am  bringing  you  a  father,  a  mother,  and  an  only 
daughter." 

"All  unique  specimens?" 

"My  word,  yes,  indeed! — to  have  their  portraits  painted. 
The  worthy  folk,  crazy  about  art,  have  never  dared  venture 
into  a  studio.  The  daughter  will  have  a  hundred  thousand 
francs  on  her  marriage.  You  may  do  well  to  paint  such 
people.  Family  portraits  for  yourself,  who  knows?" 

The  old  German  image,  who  passes  muster  as  a  man,  and 
is  called  Elias  Magus,  broke  off  to  laugh  a  dry  cackle  that  hor- 
rified the  painter.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  heard  Mephistopheles 
talking  of  marriage. 

"  The  portraits  are  to  be  five  hundred  francs  apiece ;  you 
may  give  me  three  pictures." 

"  Right  you  are  !  "  said  Fougeres  cheerfully. 

"And  if  you  marry  the  daughter,  you  will  not  forget 
me " 

"  Marry?  I !  "  cried  Pierre  Grassou';  "  I,  who  am  used  to 
have  a  bed  to  myself,  to  get  up  early,  whose  life  is  all  laid 
out " 

"A  hundred  thousand  francs,"  said  Magus,  "and  a  sweet 
girl,  full  of  golden  lights  like  a  Titian  !  " 

"And  what  position  do  these  people  hold?" 

"  Retired  merchants  :  in  love  with  the  arts  at  the  present 
moment ;  they  have  a  country  house  at  Ville-d'Avray,  and 
ten  or  twelve  thousand  francs  a  year." 

"What  was  their  business?" 

"Bottles." 

"  Don't  speak  that  word  ;  I  fancy  I  hear  corks  being  cut, 
and  it  sets  my  teeth  on  edge." 

"  Well ;  am  I  to  bring  them  ?  " 

"  Three  portraits ;  I  will  send  them  to  the  Salon ;  I  might 
go  in  for  portrait-painting.  All  right,  yes." 

And  old  Elias  went  downstairs  to  fetch  theVervelle  family. 


378  PIERRE   GRASSOU. 

To  understand  exactly  what  the  outcome  of  such  a  proposal 
would  be  on  the  painter,  and  the  effect  produced  on  him  by 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Verve)  le,  graced  by  the  addition  of 
their  only  daughter,  it  is  necessary  to  glance  for  a  moment  at 
the  past  life  of  Pierre  Grassou  of  Fougeres.  As  a  pupil,  he 
had  learned  to  draw  of  Servin,  who  was  regarded  in  the 
academical  world  as  a  great  draughtsman.  He  afterward 
worked  under  Schinner,  to  discover  the  secrets  of  the  power- 
ful and  splendid  coloring  that  characterizes  that  master.  The 
master  and  his  disciples  had  kept  the  secrets ;  Pierre  had  dis- 
covered nothing.  From  thence  Fougeres  had  gone  to  Som- 
mervieux's  studio  to  familiari/e  himself  with  that  part  of  art 
which  is  called  composition ;  but  composition  was  shy,  and 
held  aloof  from  him.  Then  he  had  tried  to  steal  from  Granet 
and  Drolling  the  mystery  of  their  luminous  interiors ;  the  two 
masters  had  not  allowed  him  to  rob  them.  Finally,  Fougeres 
had  finished  his  training  under  Duval-Lecamus. 

Through  all  these  studies  and  various  transformations,  Fou- 
geres' quiet,  steady  haBits  had  furnished  materials  for  mockery 
in  every  studio  where  he  had  worked  ;  but  he  everywhere 
disarmed  his  comrades  by  his  diffidence  and  his  lamb-like 
patience  and  meekness.  The  masters  had  no  sympathy  with 
this  worthy  lad;  masters  like  brilliant  fellows,  eccentric 
spirits,  farcical  and  fiery,  or  gloomy  and  deeply  meditative, 
promising  future  talent.  Everything  in  Fougeres  proclaimed 
his  mediocrity.  His  nickname  of  Fougeres — the  name  of  the 
painter  in  the  play  by  Fabre  d'Eglantine — was  the  pretext  for 
endless  affronts,  but  by  force  of  circumstances  he  was  saddled 
with  the  name  of  the  town  "  where  he  first  saw  the  light." 

Grassou  de  Fougeres  matched  his  name.  Plump  and  rather 
short,  he  had  a  dull  complexion,  brown  eyes,  black  hair,  a 
thick  prominent  nose,  a  rather  wide  mouth,  and  long  ears. 
His  placid,  gentle,  resigned  expression  did  little  to  improve 
these  features  of  a  face  that  was  full  of  health  but  not  of 
movement.  He  could  never  suffer  from  the  flow  of  blood, 


PIERRE   GRASSOU.  379 

the  vehemence  of  thought,  or  the  spirit  of  comedy  by  which 
a  great  artist  is  to  be  known.  This  youth,  born  to  be  a  vir- 
tuous citizen,  had  come  from  his  provincial  home  to  serve  as 
store-clerk  to  a  color-man,  a  native  of  Mayenne,  distantly  re- 
lated to  the  d'Orgemonts,  and  he  had  made  himself  a  painter 
by  the  sheer  obstinacy  which  is  the  backbone  of  the  Breton 
character.  What  he  had  endured,  and  the  way  in  which  he 
lived  during  his  period  of  study,  God  alone  knows.  He  suf- 
fered as  much  as  great  men  suffer  when  they  are  haunted  by 
want,  and  hunted  down  like  wild  beasts  by  the  pack  of  in- 
ferior souls,  and  the  whole  army  of  vanity  thirsting  for  re- 
venge. 

As  soon  as  he  thought  himself  strong  enough  for  flight  on 
his  own  wings,  he  took  a  studio  at  the  top  of  the  Rue  des 
Martyrs,  and  there  he  began  to  work.  He  first  sent  in  a  pic- 
ture in  1819.  The  picture  he  offered  the  jury  for  their  exhi- 
bition at  the  Louvre  represented  a  Village  Wedding,  a  labori- 
ous imitation  of  Greuze's  picture.  It  was  refused.  When 
Fougeres  heard  the  fatal  sentence  he  did  not  fly  into  those 
furies  or  fits  of  epileptic  vanity  to  which  proud  spirits  are 
liable,  and  which  sometimes  end  in  a  challenge  sent  to  the 
president  or  the  secretary,  or  in  threats  of  assassination. 
Fougeres  calmly  received  his  picture  back,  wrapped  it  in  a 
handkerchief,  and  brought  it  home  to  his  studio,  swearing  that 
he  would  yet  become  a  great  painter. 

He  placed  the  canvas  on  the  easel  and  went  to  call  on  his 
old  master,  a  man  of  immense  talent — Schinner — a  gentle 
and  patient  artist,  whose  success  had  been  brilliant  at  the  last 
Salon.  He  begged  him  to  come  and  criticize  the  rejected 
work.  The  great  painter  left  everything  and  went.  When 
poor  Fougeres  had  placed  him  in  front  of  the  painting,  Schin- 
ner at  the  first  glance  took  Fourgeres  by  the  hand — 

"  You  are  a  capitally  good  fellow ;  you  have  a  heart  of  gold, 
it  will  not  be  fair  to  deceive  you.  Listen  ;  you  have  kept  all 
the  promise  you  showed  at  the  studio.  When  a  man  has  such 


380  PIERRE   GRASSOU. 

stuff  as  that  at  the  end  of  his  brush,  my  good  fellow,  he  had 
better  leave  his  paints  in  Brullon's  store,  and  not  deprive 
others  of  the  canvas.  Get  home  early,  pull  on  your  cotton 
night-cap,  be  in  bed  by  nine ;  and  to-morrow  morning  at  ten 
o'clock  go  to  some  office  and  ask  for  work,  and  have  done 
with  art." 

"My  good  friend,"  said  Fourgeres,  "my  picture  is  con- 
demned already.  It  is  not  a  verdict  that  I  want,  but  the 
reasons  for  it." 

"  Well,  then,  your  tone  is  gray  and  cold  ;  you  see  nature 
through  a  crepe  veil ;  your  drawing  is  heavy  and  clumsy  ; 
your  composition  is  borrowed  from  Greuze,  who  only  re- 
deemed his  faults  by  qualities  which  you  have  not." 

As  he  pointed  out  the  faults  of  the  picture,  Schinner  saw  in 
Fougeres'  face  so  deep  an  expression  of  grief  that  he  took 
him  away  to  dine,  and  tried  to  comfort  him. 

Next  day,  by  seven  in  the  morning,  Fougeres,  before  his 
easel,  was  working  over  the  condemned  canvas ;  he  warmed 
up  the  color,  made  the  corrections  suggested  by  Schinner,  and 
touched  up  the  figures.  Then,  sick  of  such  patching,  he  took 
it  to  Elias  Magus.  Elias  Magus,  being  a  sort  of  Dutch-Bel- 
gian-Flem,  had  three  reasons  for  being  what  he  was — miserly 
and  rich.  He  had  lately  come  from  Bordeaux,  and  was  start- 
ing in  business  in  Paris  as  a  picture-dealer ;  he  lived  on  the 
Boulevard  Bonne-Nouvelle.  Fougeres,  who  trusted  to  his 
palette  to  take  him  to  the  baker's,  bravely  ate  bread  and  wal- 
nuts, or  bread  and  milk,  or  bread  and  cherries,  or  bread  and 
cheese,  according  to  the  season.  Elias  Magus,  to  whom 
Pierre  offered  his  first  picture,  eyed  it  for  a  long  time,  and 
then  gave  him  fifteen  francs. 

"Taking  fifteen  francs  a  year  and  spending  a  thousand,  I 
shall  go  fast  and  far,"  said  Fougeres,  smiling. 

Elias  Magus  gave  a  shrug  and  bit  his  thumb  at  the  thought 
that  he  might  have  had  the  picture  for  five  francs.  Every 
morning,  for  some  days,  Fougeres  went  down  the  Rue  des 


PIERRE   GRASS '0(7.  381 

Martyrs,  lost  himself  in  the  crowd  on  the  boulevard  opposite 
Magus'  shop,  and  fixed  his  eyes  on  his  picture — which  did  not 
attract  the  gaze  of  the  passers-by.  Toward  the  end  of  the 
week  the  picture  disappeared.  Fougeres  wandered  up  the 
boulevard  toward  the  picture-dealer's  store  with  an  affectation 
of  amusing  himself.  The  Jew  was  standing  in  the  doorway. 

"  Well,  you  have  sold  my  picture?  " 

"There  it  is,"  said  Magus.  "I  am  having  it  framed  to 
show  to  some  man  who  fancies  himself  knowing  in  paintings." 

Fougeres  did  not  dare  come  along  the  boulevard  any  more. 
He  began  a  new  picture ;  for  two  months  he  labored  at  it, 
feeding  like  a  mouse  and  working  like  a  galley-slave.  One 
evening  he  walked  out  on  the  boulevard ;  his  feet  carried  him 
involuntarily  to  Magus'  store ;  he  could  nowhere  see  his 
picture. 

"  I  have  sold  your  picture,"  said  the  dealer  to  the  artist. 

"  For  how  much?  " 

"  I  got  my  money  back  with  a  little  interest.  Paint  me 
some  Flemish  interiors,  an  Anatomy  lecture,  a  landscape;  I 
will  take  them  of  you,"  said  Elias. 

Fougeres  could  have  hugged  Magus  in  his  arms  ;  he  looked 
upon  him  as  a  father.  He  went  home  with  joy  in  his  heart. 
Then  Schinner,  the  great  Schinner,  was  mistaken  !  In  that 
vast  city  of  Paris  there  were  some  hearts  that  beat  in  unison 
with  that  of  Grassou ;  his  talent  was  discerned  and  ap- 
preciated ! 

The  poor  fellow,  at  seven-and-twenty,  had  the  artlessness 
of  a  boy  of  sixteen.  Any  one  else,  one  of  your  distrustful, 
suspicious  artists,  would  have  noticed  Elias'  diabolical  ex- 
pression, have  seen  the  quiver  of  his  beard,  the  ironical  curl 
of  his  mustache,  the  action  of  his  shoulders,  all  betraying  the 
satisfaction  of  Walter  Scott's  Jew  cheating  a  Christian. 
Fougeres  paraded  the  boulevards  with  a  joy  that  gave  his  face 
an  expression  of  pride.  He  looked  like  a  schoolboy  protect- 
ing a  woman.  He  met  Joseph  Bridau,  one  of  his  fellow- 


382  PIERRE   GRASSOU. 

students,  one  of  those  eccentric  men  of  genius  who  are  pre- 
destined to  glory  and  disaster.  Joseph  Bridau,  having  a  few 
sous  in  his  pocket,  as  he  expressed  it,  took  Fougeres  to  the 
opera.  Fougeres  did  not  see  the  ballet,  did  not  hear  the 
music;  he  was  imagining  pictures,  he  was  painting. 

He  left  Joseph  half-way  through  the  evening,  and  ran  home 
to  make  sketches  by  lamp-light ;  he  invented  thirty  pictures, 
full  of  reminiscences,  and  believed  himself  a  genius.  Next 
day  he  bought  some  colors  and  canvasses  of  various  sizes ;  he 
spread  out  some  bread  and  some  cheese  on  his  table ;  he  got 
some  water  in  a  jug,  and  a  store  of  wood  for  his  stove ;  then, 
to  use  the  studio  phrase,  he  pegged  away  at  his  painting ;  he 
employed  a  few  models,  and  Magus  lent  him  draperies.  After 
two  months  of  seclusion,  the  Breton  had  finished  four  pictures. 
He  again  asked  Schinner's  advice,  with  the  addition  of  Joseph 
Bridau's.  The  two  painters  found  these  works  to  be  a  servile 
imitation  of  Dutch  landscapes,  of  Metzu's  interiors,  and  the 
fourth  was  a  version  of  Rembrandt's  "Anatomy  Lecture." 

"Always  imitations!"  said  Schinner.  "Ah,  Fougeres 
would  find  it  hard  to  be  original." 

"  You  ought  to  turn  your  attention  to  something  else  than 
painting,"  said  Bridau. 

"  To  what  ?  "  said  Fougeres. 

"Go  in  for  literature." 

Fougeres  bent  his  head  as  sheep  do  before  rain.  Then  he 
asked  and  got  some  practical  advice,  touched  up  his  paint- 
ings, and  carried  them  to  Elias.  Elias  gave  him  twenty-five 
francs  for  each.  At  this  price  Fougeres  made  nothing,  but, 
thanks  to  his  abstemiousness,  he  lost  nothing.  He  took  some 
walks  to  see  what  became  of  his  pictures,  and  had  a  singular 
hallucination.  His  works,  so  firmly  painted,  so  neat,  as  hard 
as  tin-plate  iron,  and  as  shining  as  painting  on  porcelain, 
seemed  to  be  covered  with  a  fog ;  they  looked  quite  like  old 
masters. 

Elias  had  just   gone  out ;    Fougeres  could  obtain  no   in- 


PIERRE    GRASSOU.  383 

formation  as  to  this  phenomenon.  He  thought  his  eyes  de- 
ceived him. 

The  painter  went  home  to  his  studio  to  make  new  old 
masters.  After  seven  years  of  constant  work,  Fougeres  was 
able  to  compose  and  paint  fairly  good  pictures.  He  did  as  well 
as  all  the  other  artists  of  the  second  class.  Elias  bought  and 
sold  all  the  poor  Breton's  pictures,  while  he  laboriously  earned 
a  hundred  louis  a  year,  and  did  not  spend  more  than  twelve 
hundred  francs. 

At  the  Exhibition  of  1829,  L6on  de  Lora,  Schinner,  and 
Bridau,  who  all  three  filled  a  large  space,  and  were  at  the 
head  of  the  new  movement  in  art,  took  pity  on  their  old 
comrade's  perseverance  and  poverty  ;  they  managed  to  get  a 
picture  by  Fougeres  accepted  and  hung  in  the  great  room. 
This  work,  of  thrilling  interest,  recalling  Vigneron  in  its  sen- 
timent and  Dubufe's  early  manner  in  its  execution,  repre- 
sented a  young  man  in  prison  having  the  back  of  his  head 
shaved.  On  one  side  stood  a  priest,  on  the  other  a  young 
woman  in  tears.  A  lawyer's  clerk  was  reading  an  official 
document.  On  a  wretched  table  stood  a  meal  of  which  no 
one  had  eaten.  The  light  came  in  through  the  bars  of  a  high 
window.  It  was  enough  to  make  the  good  folk  shudder,  and 
they  shuddered. 

Fougeres  had  borrowed  directly  from  Gerard  Dow's  master- 
piece :  he  had  turned  the  group  of  the  "  Dropsical  Woman  " 
toward  the  window  instead  of  facing  the  spectator.  He  had 
put  the  condemned  prisoner  in  the  place  of  the  dying  woman 
— the  same  pallor,  the  same  look,  the  same  appeal  to  heaven. 
Instead  of  the  Dutch  physician,  there  was  the  rigid  official 
figure  of  the  clerk  dressed  in  black ;  but  he  had  added  an  old 
woman  by  the  side  of  Gerard  Dow's  young  girl.  The  cruelly 
good-humored  face  of  the  executioner  crowned  the  group. 
This  plagiarism,  skillfully  concealed,  was  not  recognized. 

The  catalogue  contained  these  words : 


384  PIERRE   GRASSOU, 

510,  GRASSOU  DE  FOURGERES  (PIERRE),  Rue  de  Navarin,  2. 
The  Chouan's  Toilet;  condemned  to  Death,  1809. 

Though  quite  mediocre,  the  picture  had  a  prodigious  suc- 
cess, for  it  reminded  the  spectators  of  the  affair  of  the  robbers 
— known  as  the  Chauffeurs — of  Mortagne.  A  crowd  collected 
every  day  in  front  of  the  picture,  which  became  the  fashion, 
and  Charles  X.  stopped  to  look  at  it.  MADAME,  having  heard 
of  the  poor  Breton's  patient  life,  grew  enthusiastic  about  him. 
The  Due  d'Orleans  asked  the  price  of  the  painting.  The 
priests  told  Madame  the  Dauphiness  that  the  work  was  full  of 
pious  feeling ;  it  had,  no  doubt,  a  very  satisfactory  suggestion 
of  religion.  Monseigneur  the  Dauphin  admired  the  dust  on 
the  window-panes,  a  stupid,  dull  mistake,  for  what  Fougeres 
had  intended  was  a  greenish  tone,  which  spoke  of  damp  at 
the  bottom  of  the  walls.  MADAME  bought  the  picture  for  a 
thousand  francs,  and  the  Dauphin  gave  a  commission  for 
another.  Charles  X.  bestowed  the  cross  on  this  son  of  a 
peasant  who  had  fought  for  the  Royal  Cause  in  1799  ;  Joseph 
Bridau,  a  great  painter,  was  not  decorated.  The  Minister  of 
the  Interior  ordered  two  sacred  pictures  for  the  church  at 
Fourgeres.  This  Salon  was  to  Pierre  Grassou  fortune,  glory, 
a  future,  and  life. 

To  invent  in  any  kind  is  to  die  by  inches;  to  copy  is  to 
live.  Having  at  last  discovered  a  vein  full  of  gold,  Grassou 
of  Fougeres  practiced  that  part  of  this  barbarous  maxim  to 
which  the  world  owes  the  atrocious  mediocrity  whose  duty  it 
is  to  elect  its  superiors  in  every  class  of  society,  but  which 
naturally  elects  itself,  and  wages  pitiless  war  against  all  real 
talent.  The  principle  of  election  universally  applied  is  a  bad 
one ;  France  will  get  over  it.  At  the  same  time,  Fougeres 
was  so  gentle  and  kind  that  his  modesty,  his  simplicity,  and 
his  astonishment  silenced  recriminations  and  envy.  Then, 
again,  he  had  on  his  side  all  the  successful  Grassous,  represent- 
ing all  the  Grassous  to  come.  Some  people,  touched  by  the 


PIERRE   GRASSOU.  385 

energy  of  a  man  whom  nothing  had  discouraged,  spoke  of 
Domenichino,  and  said,  "  Hard  work  in  the  arts  must  be  re- 
warded. Grassou  has  earned  his  success.  He  has  been  peg- 
ging at  it  for  ten  years,  poor  old  fellow !  " 

This  exclamation,  "  poor  old  fellow  !  "  counted  for  a  great 
deal  in  the  support  and  congratulations  the  painter  received. 
Pity  elevates  as  many  second-rate  talents  as  envy  runs  down 
great  artists.  The  newspapers  had  not  been  sparing  of  criti- 
cism, but  the  Chevalier  Fougeres  took  it  all  as  he  took  his 
friend's  advice,  with  angelic  patience.  Rich  now,  with  fif- 
teen thousand  francs  very  hardly  earned,  he  furnished  his 
rooms  and  his  studio  in  the  Rue  de  Navarin,  he  painted  the 
picture  ordered  by  Monseigneur  the  Dauphin  and  the  two 
sacred  works  commanded  by  the  Minister,  finishing  them  to 
the  day,  with  a  punctuality  perfectly  distracting  to  the  cashier 
of  the  Ministry,  accustomed  to  quite  other  ways.  But  note 
the  good-luck  of  methodical  people  !  If  he  had  delayed, 
Grassou,  overtaken  by  the  revolution  of  July,  would  never 
have  been  paid. 

By  the  time  he  was  seven-and-thirty  Fougeres  had  manufac- 
tured for  Elias  Magus  about  two  hundred  pictures,  all  perfectly 
unknown,  but  by  which  he  had  gained  with  practice  that 
satisfactory  handling,  that  pitch  of  dexterity  at  which  an 
artist  shrugs  his  shoulders,  and  which  is  dear  to  the  Philistine. 
Fougeres  was  loved  by  his  friends  for  his  rectitude  of  mind 
and  steadfastness  of  feeling,  for  his  perfectly  obliging  temper 
and  loyal  spirit ;  though  they  had  no  respect  for  his  palette, 
they  were  attached  to  the  man  who  held  it. 

"What  a  pity  that  Fougeres  should  indulge  in  the  vice  of 
painting !  "  his  friends  would  say. 

Grassou,  however,  could  give  sound  advice,  like  the  news- 
paper writers,  who  are  incapable  of  producing  a  book,  but 
who  know  full  well  where  a  book  is  faulty.  But  there  was  a 
difference  between  Fougeres  and  these  literary  critics  ;  he  was 
keenly  alive  to  every  beauty,  he  acknowledged  it,  and  his 
25 


386  PIERRE   GRASSOU. 

advice  was  stamped  with  a  sense  of  justice  which  made  his 
strictures  acceptable. 

After  the  revolution  of  July  Fougeres  sent  in  ten  or  more 
paintings  to  every  exhibition,  of  which  the  jury  would  accept 
four  or  five.  He  lived  with  the  stsictest  economy,  and  his 
whole  household  consisted  of  a  woman  to  manage  the  house- 
work. His  amusements  lay  solely  in  visits  to  his  friends  and 
in  going  to  see  works  of  art ;  he  treated  himself  to  some  little 
tours  in  France,  and  dreamed  of  seeking  inspiration  in  Switz- 
erland. This  wretched  artist  was  a  good  citizen ;  he  served 
in  the  Guard,  turned  out  for  inspection,  and  paid  his  rent  and 
bills  with  the  vulgarest  punctuality.  Having  lived  in  hard 
work  and  penury,  he  had  never  had  time  to  be  in  love.  A 
bachelor  and  poor,  up  to  the  present  day  he  had  had  no  wish 
to  complicate  his  simple  existence. 

Having  no  idea  of  any  way  of  increasing  his  wealth,  he 
took  his  savings  and  his  earnings  every  quarter  to  his  notary, 
Cardot.  When  the  notary  had  a  thousand  crowns  in  hand, 
he  invested  them  in  a  first  mortgage,  with  substitution  in  favor 
of  the  wife's  rights  if  the  borrower  should  marry,  or  in  favor 
of  the  seller  if  the  borrower  should  wish  to  pay  it  off.  The 
notary  drew  the  interest  and  added  it  to  the  sums  deposited 
by  Grassou  de  Fougeres.  The  painter  looked  forward  to  the 
happy  day  when  his  investments  should  reach  the  imposing 
figure  of  two  thousand  francs  a  year,  when  he  would  indulge 
in  the  dignified  leisure  of  an  artist  and  paint  pictures — oh  ! 
but  such  pictures  !  Real  pictures,  finished  pictures — some- 
thing like,  clipping,  stunning  !  His  fondest  hope,  his  dream 
of  joy,  the  climax  of  all  his  hopes — would  you  like  to  know 
it !  It  was  to  be  elected  to  the  Institute  and  wear  the  rosette 
of  the  officers  of  the  Legion  of  Honor !  To  sit  by  Schinner 
and  Leon  de  Lora  !  To  get  into  the  Academy  before  Bridau  ! 
To  have  a  rosette  in  his  button-hole.  What  a  vision  !  Only 
your  commonplace  mind  can  think  of  everything. 


PIERRE   GRASSOU.  387 

On  hearing  several  footsteps  on  the  stairs,  Fougeres  pushed 
his  fingers  through  his  top-knot  of  hair,  buttoned  his  bottle- 
green  vest,  and  was  not  a  little  surprised  at  the  entrance  of  a 
face  of  the  kind  known  in  the  studio  as  a  melon.  This  fruit 
was  perched  on  a  pumpkin  dressed  in  blue  cloth,  and  graced 
with  a  dangling  bunch  of  jingling  seals.  The  melon  snorted 
like  a  porpoise,  the  pumpkin  walked  on  turnips  incorrectly 
called  legs.  A  real  artist  would  at  once  have  sketched  such  a 
caricature  of  the  bottle-merchant  and  then  have  shown  him 
out,  saying  that  he  did  not  paint  vegetables.  Fougeres  looked 
at  his  customer  without  laughing,  for  M.  Vervelle  wore  in  his 
shirt-front  a  diamond  worth  a  thousand  crowns.  Fougeres 
glanced  at  Magus,  and  said  in  the  studio  slang  of  the  day, 
"  A  fat  job,"  meaning  that  the  worthy  was  rich  and  well  able 
to  pay. 

M.  Vervelle  heard  it  and  frowned.  He  brought  in  his 
train  some  other  vegetable  combinations  in  the  persons  of  his 
wife  and  daughter.  The  wife  had  in  her  face  a  fine  mahogany 
tone ;  she  looked  like  a  cocoanut  surmounted  by  a  head  and 
tightened  in  with  a  belt ;  she  twirled  round  on  her  feet ;  her 
dress  was  yellow,  with  black  stripes.  She  proudly  displayed 
absurd  mittens  on  a  pair  of  hands  as  swollen  as  a  glover's 
sign.  The  feathers  of  a  first-class  funeral  waved  over  a  coal- 
scuttle bonnet ;  lace  frills  covered  a  figure  as  round  behind  as 
before,  thus  the  spherical  form  of  the  cocoanut  was  perfect. 
Her  feet,  which  a  painter  would  have  termed  hoofs,  had  a 
garnish  of  half-an-inch  of  fat  projecting  beyond  her  patent- 
leather  shoes.  How  had  her  feet  been  gotten  into  the  shoes? 
Who  can  tell  ? 

Behind  her  came  a  young  asparagus  shoot,  green  and  yellow 
as  to  her  dress,  with  a  small  head  covered  with  hair  in  flat 
braids  of  a  carroty  yellow  which  a  Roman  would  have  adored, 
thread-paper  arms,  a  fairly  white  but  freckled  skin,  large  inno- 
cent eyes,  with  colorless  lashes  and  faintly  marked  eyebrows, 
a  Leghorn  straw  hat,  trimmed  with  a  couple  of  honest,  white 


388  PIERRE   GRASSOU. 

satin  bows,  and  bound  with  white  satin ;  virtuously  red  hands, 
and  feet  like  her  mother's. 

These  three  persons,  as  they  looked  round  the  studio,  had 
a  look  of  beatitude  which  showed  a  highly  respectable  enthu- 
siasm for  art. 

"  And  it  is  you,  sir,  who  are  going  to  take  our  likenesses?  " 
said  the  father,  assuming  a  little  dashing  air. 

"Yes,  sir,"  replied  Grassou. 

"  Vervelle,  he  has  the  Cross,"  said  the  wife  to  her  husband 
in  a  whisper  while  the  painter's  back  was  turned. 

"Should  I  have  our  portraits  painted  by  an  artist  who  was 
not  'decorated?'"  retorted  the  bottle-merchant. 

Elias  Magus  bowed  to  the  Vervelle  family  and  went  away. 
Grassou  followed  him  on  to  the  landing. 

"Who  but  you  would  have  discovered  such  a  set  of 
phizzes?  " 

"A  hundred  thousand  francs  in  settlement !  " 

"  Yes,  but  what  a  family  !  " 

"And  three  hundred  thousand  francs  in  expectations,  a 
house  in  the  Rue  Boucherat,  and  a  country  place  at  Ville 
d'Avray." 

"Boucherat,  bottles,  bumpkins,  and  bounce!"  said  the 
painter. 

"You  will  be  out  of  want  for  the  rest  of  your  days,"  said 
Elias. 

This  idea  flashed  into  Pierre  Grassou's  brain  as  the  morning 
light  had  broken  on  his  attic.  As  he  placed  the  young  lady's 
father  in  position,  he  thought  him  really  good-looking,  and 
admired  his  face  with  its  strong  purple  tones.  The  mother 
and  daughter  hovered  round  the  painter,  wondering  at  all  his 
preparations ;  to  them  he  seemed  a  god.  This  visible  adora- 
tion was  pleasing  to  Fougeres.  The  golden  calf  cast  its  fan- 
tastic reflection  on  this  family. 

"  You  must  earn  enormous  sums ;  but  you  spend  it  as  fast  as 
you  get  it?  "  said  the  mother. 


PIERRE    GRASSOU.  389 

"  No,  madame,"  replied  the  painter,  "  I  do  not  spend.  I 
have  not  means  to  amuse  myself.  My  notary  invests  my 
money ;  he  knows  what  I  have,  and  when  once  the  money  is 
in  his  hands  I  think  no  more  about  it." 

"And  I  have  always  been  told  that  painters  were  a  thriftless 
set !  "  said  Father  Vervelle. 

"  Who  is  your  notary,  if  it  is  not  too  great  a  liberty?  "  said 
Madame  Vervelle. 

"A  capital  fellow  all  round — Cardot." 

"  Lord  !  lord  !  Isn't  that  funny  now  !  "  said  Vervelle. 
"Why  Cardot  is  ours,  too." 

"  Do  not  move,"  said  the  painter. 

"  Sit  still,  do,  Antenor,"  said  his  wife ;  "you  will  put  the 
gentleman  out ;  if  you  could  see  him  working  you  would  un- 
derstand." 

"  Gracious  me,  why  did  you  never  have  me  taught  art?" 
said  Mademoiselle  Vervelle  to  her  parents. 

"  Virginie !  "  exclaimed  her  mother,  "there  are  certain 
things  a  young  lady  cannot  learn.  When  you  are  married — 
well  and  good.  Till  then  be  content." 

In  the  course  of  this  first  sitting  the  Vervelle  family  became 
almost  intimate  with  the  worthy  artist.  They  were  to  come 
again  two  days  after.  As  they  left,  the  father  and  mother  de- 
sired Virginie  to  go  first ;  but,  in  spite  of  the  distance  between 
them,  she  heard  these  words,  of  which  the  meaning  must  have 
roused  her  curiosity : 

"Decore  (decorated) — thirty-seven — an  artist  who  gets  com- 
missions and  places  his  money  in  our  notary's  hands.  We 
will  consult  Cardot.  Madame  de  Fongeres,  eh?  not  a  bad 
name.  He  does  not  look  like  a  bad  fellow  !  A  man  of  busi- 
ness, you  would  say?  But  so  long  as  a  merchant  has  not  re- 
tired from  business,  you  can  never  tell  what  your  daughter 

may  come  to ;  while  an  artist  who  saves And  then  we 

are  fond  of  art.  Well,  well- 
While  the  Vervelles  were  discussing  him,  Pierre  Grassou  was 


390  PIERRE   GRASSOCT. 

thinking  of  the  Vervelles.  He  found  it  impossible  to  remain 
quietly  in  his  studio ;  he  walked  up  and  down  the  boulevard, 
looking  at  every  red-haired  woman  who  went  by  !  He  argued 
with  himself  in  the  strangest  way:  Gold  was  the  most  splendid 
of  the  metals,  yellow  stood  for  gold ;  the  ancient  Romans  liked 
red-haired  women,  and  he  became  a  Roman,  and  so  forth. 
After  being  married  two  years,  what  does  a  man  care  for  his 
wife's  complexion  ?  Beauty  fades,  but  ugliness — remains ! 
Money  is  half  of  happiness.  That  evening,  when  he  went  to 
bed,  the  painter  had  already  persuaded  himself  that  Virginie 
Vervelle  was  charming. 

When  the  trio  walked  in  on  the  day  fixed  for  the  second 
sitting,  the  artist  received  them  with  an  amiable  smile.  The 
rogue  had  shaved,  had  put  on  a  clean  white  shirt ;  he  had 
chosen  a  becoming  pair  of  trousers,  and  red  slippers  with 
Turkish  toes.  The  family  responded  with  a  smile  as  flattering 
as  the  artist's ;  Virginie  turned  as  red  as  her  hair,  dropped  her 
eyes,  and  turned  away  her  head,  looking  at  the  studies.  Pierre 
Grassou  thought  these  little  affectations  quite  bewitching.  Vir- 
ginie was  graceful ;  happily,  she  was  neither  like  father  nor 
mother.  But  whom  was  she  like  ? 

"Ah,  I  see,"  said  he  to  himself;  "  the  mother  has  had  an 
eye  to  business." 

During  the  sitting  there  was  a  war  of  wits  between  the 
family  and  the  painter,  who  was  so  audacious  as  to  say  that 
Father  Vervelle  was  witty.  After  this  piece  of  flattery  the 
family  took  possession  of  the  painter's  heart  in  double-quick 
time ;  he  gave  one  of  his  drawings  to  Virginie  and  a  sketch 
to  her  mother. 

"  For  nothing? "  they  asked. 

Pierre  Grassou  could  not  help  smiling. 

"You  must  not  give  your  works  away  like  this;  they  are 
money,"  said  Vervelle. 

At  the  third  sitting  old  Vervelle  spoke  of  a  fine  collection 
of  pictures  he  had  in  his  country  house  at  Ville  d'Avray — 


PIERRE    GRASSOU.  381 

Rubens,  Gerard  Dow,  Mieris,  Terburg,  Rsmbrandt,  a  Titian, 
Paul  Potter,  etc. 

"Monsieur  Vervelle  has  been  frightfully  extravagant," 
said  Madame  Vervelle  pompously.  "  He  has  a  hundred 
thousand  francs'  worth  of  pictures." 

"  I  am  fond  of  the  arts,"  said  the  bottle-merchant. 

When  Madame  Vervelle's  portrait  was  begun,  that  of  her 
husband  was  nearly  finished.  The  enthusiasm  of  the  family 
now  knew  no  bounds.  The  notary  had  praised  the  artist  in 
the  highest  terms.  Pierre  Grassou  was  in  his  opinion  the  best 
fellow  on  earth,  one  of  the  steadiest  of  artists,  who  had  indeed 
saved  thirty-six  thousand  francs  ;  his  days  of  poverty  were  past, 
he  was  making  ten  thousand  francs  a  year,  he  was  reinvesting 
his  interest,  and  he  was  incapable  of  making  a  woman  un- 
happy. This  last  sentence  was  of  great  weight  in  the  scale. 
The  friends  of  the  family  heard  nothing  talked  of  bat  the 
celebrated  Fougeres. 

By  the  time  Fougeres  began  the  portrait  of  Virginie  he  was 
already  the  son-in-law-elect  of  the  Vervelle  couple.  The  trio 
expanded  in  this  studio,  which  they  had  begun  to  regard  as 
a  home ;  there  was  an  inexplicable  attraction  to  them  in  this 
cleaned,  cared-for,  neat,  artistic  spot.  Abyssus  abyssum,  like 
to  like. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  sitting  the  stairs  were  shaken,  the 
door  was  flung  open,  and  in  came  Joseph  Bridau ;  he  rode  the 
whirlwind,  his  hair  was  flying;  in  he  came  with  his  broad, 
deeply-seamed  face,  shot  lightning  glances  all  round  the  roo>m, 
and  came  suddenly  up  to  Grassou,  pulling  his  coat  across  the 
gastric  region,  and  trying  to  button  it,  but  in  vain,  for  the 
button  mould  had  escaped  from  its  cloth  cover. 

"  Times  are  bad,"  he  said  to  Grassou. 

"Hah?" 

"  The  duns  are  at  my  heels.  Halloo  !  are  you  pain-ting  that 
Bort  of  thing?" 

"  Hold  your  tongue  !  " 


392  PIERRE    GRASSOU, 

"To  be  sure " 

The  Vervelle  family,  excessively  taken  aback  by  this  appari- 
tion, turned  from  the  usual  red  to  the  cherry  scarlet  of  a 
fierce  fire. 

"It  pays,"  said  Joseph.  "Have  you  any  shot  in  your 
locker?" 

"  Do  you  want  much  ?  " 

"  A  five-hundred-franc  note There  is  a  party  after  me 

of  the  bloodhound  kind,  who,  when  once  they  have  set  their 
teeth,  do  not  let  go  without  having  the  piece  out.  What  a 
set !" 

"  I  will  give  you  a  line  to  my  notary " 

"  What !  you  have  a  notary  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"Then  that  accounts  for  your  still  painting  cheeks  rose- 
pink,  only  fit  for  a  hairdresser's  doll !  " 

Grassou  could  not  help  reddening,  for  Virginie  was  sitting 
to  him. 

"Paint  nature  as  it  is,"  the  great  painter  went  on. 
"  Mademoiselle  is  red-haired.  Well,  is  that  a  deadly  sin  ? 
Everything  is  fine  in  painting.  Squeeze  me  out  some  cinna- 
bar, warm  up  those  cheeks,  give  me  those  little  brown  freckles, 
butter  your  canvas  boldly  !  Do  you  want  to  do  better  than 
Nature?" 

"Here,"  said  Fougeres,  "take  my  place  while  I  write." 

Vervelle  waddled  to  the  writing-table  and  spoke  in  Gras- 
sou's  ear. 

"That  interfering  muddler  will  spoil  it,"  said  the  bottle- 
merchant. 

"  If  he  would  paint  your  Virginie's  portrait,  it  would  be 
worth  a  thousand  of  mine,"  replied  Fougeres  indignantly. 

On  hearing  this,  the  goodman  quietly  beat  a  retreat  to  join 
his  wife,  who  sat  bewildered  at  the  invasion  of  this  wild  beast, 
and  not  at  all  happy  at  seeing  him  cooperating  in  her  daughter's 
portrait. 


PIERRE   GRASSOU.  393 

"  There,  carry  out  those  hints,"  said  Bridau,  returning  the 
palette,  and  taking  the  note.  "  I  will  not  thank  you.  I  can 
get  back  to  D'Arthez'  mansion  ;  I  am  painting  a  dining-room 
for  him,  and  Leon  de  Lora  is  doing  panels  over  the  doors — 
masterpieces.  Come  and  see  us  !  " 

He  went  off  without  bowing  even,  so  sick  was  he  of  looking 
at  Virginie. 

"  Who  is  that  man  ?  "  asked  Madame  Vervelle. 

"A  great  artist,"  replied  Grassou. 

There  was  a  moment's  silence. 

"Are  you  quite  sure,"  said  Virginie,  "  that  he  has  brought 
no  ill-luck  to  my  portrait?  He  frightened  me." 

"  He  has  only  improved  it,"  said  Grassou. 

"  If  he  is  a  great  artist,  I  prefer  a  great  artist  like  you,"  said 
Madame  de  Vervelle. 

"  Oh,  mamma,  Monsieur  Fougeres  is  a  much  greater  artist. 
He  will  take  me  full  length,"  remarked  Virginie. 

The  eccentricities  of  genius  had  scared  these  steady-going 
Philistines. 

The  year  had  now  reached  that  pleasant  autumn  season 
prettily  called  Saint-Martin's  summer.  It  was  with  the  shy- 
ness of  a  neophyte  in  the  presence  of  a  man  of  genius  that 
Vervelle  ventured  to  invite  Grassou  to  spend  the  following 
Sunday  at  his  country-house.  He  knew  how  little  attraction 
a  bourgeois  family  could  offer  to  an  artist. 

"You  artists,"  said  he,  "must  have  excitement,  fine  scenes, 
and  clever  company.  But  I  can  give  you  some  good  wine, 
and  I  rely  on  my  pictures  to  make  up  for  the  dullness  an  artist 
like  you  must  feel  among  tradesfolk." 

This  worship,  which  greatly  soothed  his  vanity,  delighted 
poor  Pierre  Grassou,  who  was  little  used  to  such  compliments. 
This  worthy  artist,  this  ignominious  mediocrity,  this  heart  of 
gold,  this  loyal  soul,  this  blundering  draughtsman,  this  best 
of  good  fellows,  displaying  the  cross  of  the  royal  order  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor,  got  himself  up  with  care  to  go  and  enjoy 


394  PIERRE   GRASSOU. 

the  last  fine  days  of  the  year  at  Ville  d'Avray.  The  painter 
arrived  unpretentiously  by  the  public  conveyance,  and  could 
not  help  admiring  the  bottle-merchant's  handsome  residence 
placed  in  the  midst  of  a  park  of  about  five  acres,  at  the  top 
of  the  hill,  and  the  best  point  of  view.  To  marry  Virginie 
meant  owning  this  fine  house  some  day  ! 

He  was  received  by  the  Vervelles  with  an  enthusiasm,  a  de- 
light, a  genuine  heartiness,  a  simple,  commonplace  stupidity 
that  overpowered  him.  It  was  a  day  of  triumph.  The  future 
son-in-law  was  taken  to  walk  along  the  nankeen-colored  paths, 
which  had  been  raked,  as  was  due,  for  a  great  man.  The  very 
trees  looked  as  if  they  had  been  brushed  and  combed,  the 
lawns  were  mown.  The  pure  country  air  diluted  kitchen 
odors  of  the  most  comforting  character.  Everything  in  the 
house  proclaimed,  "We  have  a  great  artist  here!"  Little 
Father  Vervelle  rolled  about  his  paddock  like  an  apple,  the 
daughter  wriggled  after  him  like  an  eel,  and  the  mother  fol- 
lowed with  great  dignity.  For  seven  hours  these  three  beings 
never  released  Grassou. 

After  a  dinner,  of  which  the  length  matched  the  splendor, 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Vervelle  came  to  their  grand  surprise 
— the  opening  of  the  picture  gallery,  lighted  up  by  lamps 
carefully  arranged  for  effect.  Three  neighbors,  all  retired 
business  men,  an  uncle  from  whom  they  had  expectations, 
invited  in  honor  of  the  great  artist,  an  old  Aunt  Vervelle, 
and  the  other  guests  followed  Grassou  into  the  gallery,  all 
curious  to  hear  his  opinion  of  little  Daddy  Vervelle's  famous 
collection,  for  he  overpowered  them  by  the  fabulous  value  of 
his  pictures.  The  bottle-merchant  seemed  to  wish  to  vie  with 
King  Louis-Philippe  and  the  galleries  of  Versailles. 

The  pictures,  splendidly  framed,  bore  tickets,  on  which 
might  be  read  in  black  letters  on  a  gold  label : 


PIERRE   GRASSOU.  395 

RUBENS 
A  Dance  of  Fauns  and  Nymphs 

REMBRANDT 

Interior  of  a  Dissecting-room 

Doctor  Tromp  giving  a  Lesson  to  his  Pupils 

There  were  a  hundred  and  fifty  pictures,  all  varnished  and 
dusted ;  a  few  had  green  curtains  over  them,  not  to  be  raised 
in  the  presence  of  the  "young  person." 

The  artist  stood  with  limp  arms  and  a  gaping  mouth,  with- 
out a  word  on  his  lips,  as  he  recognized  in  this  gallery  half 
his  own  works;  he,  He  was  Rubens,  Paul  Potter,  Mieris, 
Metzu,  Gerard  Dow  !  He  alone  was  twenty  great  masters ! 

"What  is  the  matter?  you  look  pale." 

"  Daughter,  a  glass  of  water !  "  cried  Madame  Vervelle. 

The  painter  took  the  old  man  by  the  button  of  his  coat  and 
led  him  into  a  corner,  under  pretense  of  examining  a  Murillo. 
Spanish  pictures  were  then  the  fashion. 

"  You  bought  your  pictures  of  Elias  Magus?  "  said  he. 

"Yes.     All  original  works." 

"  Between  ourselves,  what  did  he  make  you  pay  for  those  I 
will  point  out  to  you?" 

The  couple  went  round  the  gallery.  The  guests  were 
amazed  at  the  solemnity  with  which  the  artist,  following  his 
host,  examined  all  these  masterpieces. 

"Three  thousand  francs!"  exclaimed  Vervelle  in  an  un- 
dertone, as  he  came  to  the  last.  "  But  I  tell  you  forty  thou- 
sand francs !  " 

"  Forty  thousand  francs  for  a  Titian  !"  said  the  artist  aloud ; 
"why,  it  is  dirt-cheap." 

"When  I  told  you  I  had  a  hundred  thousand  crowns'  worth 
of  pictures "  exclaimed  Vervelle. 

"  I  painted  every  one  of  those  pictures"  said  Pierre  Grassou, 


396  PIERRE   GRASSOU. 

in  his  ear;  "  and  I  did  not  get  more  than  ten  thousand  francs 
for  the  whole  lot." 

"  Prove  it,"  replied  the  bottle-merchant,  "  and  I  will  double 
my  daughter's  settlements ;  for  in  that  case  you  are  Rubens, 
Rembrandt,  Terburg,  Titian  !  " 

"And  Magus  is  something  like  a  picture-dealer!"  added 
the  painter,  who  could  account  for  the  antique  look  of  the 
pictures  and  the  practical  end  of  the  subjects  ordered  by  the 
dealer. 

Far  from  falling  in  his  admirer's  estimation,  M.  de  Fou- 
geres — for  so  the  family  insisted  on  calling  Pierre  Grassou — 
rose  so  high  that  he  painted  his  family  for  nothing,  and,  of 
course,  presented  the  portraits  to  his  father-in-law,  his  mother- 
in-law,  and  his  wife. 

Pierre  Grassou,  who  never  misses  a  single  exhibition,  is  now 
regarded  in  the  Philistine  world  as  a  very  good  portrait- 
painter.  He  earns  about  twelve  thousand  francs  a  year,  and 
spoils  about  five  hundred  francs'  worth  of  canvas.  His  wife 
had  six  thousand  francs  a  year  on  her  marriage,  and  they  live 
with  her  parents.  The  Vervelles  and  the  Grassous,  who  get 
on  perfectly  well  together,  keep  a  carriage,  and  are  the  hap- 
piest people  on  earth.  Pierre  Grassou  moves  in  a  common- 
place circle,  where  he  is  considered  one  of  the  greatest  artists 
of  the  period.  Not  a  family  portrait  is  ordered  between  the 
Barriere  du  Trone  and  the  Rue  du  Temple  that  is  not  the 
work  of  this  great  painter,  or  that  costs  less  than  five  hundred 
francs.  The  great  reason  why  the  townsfolk  employ  this 
artist  is  this :  "  Say  what  you  like,  he  invests  twenty  thousand 
francs  a  year  through  his  notary." 

As  Grassou  behaved  very  well  in  the  riots  of  the  i2th  of 
May,  he  has  been  promoted  to  be  an  officer  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor.  He  is  major  in  the  National  Guard.  The  Versailles 
gallery  was  bound  to  order  a  battle-scene  of  so  worthy  a 
citizen,  who  forthwith  walked  all  about  Paris  to  meet  his  old 


PIERRE    GRASSOU.  397 

comrades,  and  to  say  with  an  air  of  indifference,  "The  King 
has  ordered  me  to  paint  a  battle  !  " 

Madame  de  Fougeres  adores  her  husband,  whom  she  has 
presented  with  two  children.  The  painter,  however,  a  good 
father  and  a  good  husband,  cannot  altogether  get  rid  of  a 
haunting  thought :  other  painters  make  fun  of  him ;  his  name 
is  a  term  of  contempt  in  every  studio ;  the  newspapers  never 
notice  his  works.  Still,  he  works  on  and  is  making  his  way 
to  the  Academy ;  he  will  be  admitted.  And  then — a  revenge 
that  swells  his  heart  with  pride — he  buys  pictures  by  famous 
artists  when  they  are  in  difficulties,  and  he  is  replacing  the 
daubs  at  the  Ville  d'Avray  by  real  masterpieces — not  of  his 
own  painting. 

There  are  mediocrities  more  vexatious  and  more  spiteful 
than  that  of  Pierre  Grassou,  who  is  in  fact  anonymously 
benevolent  and  perfectly  obliging. 

PARIS,  December,  1839. 


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